Factory Seconds
If you have pre-ordered: We have a small number of Wind Instruments on hand with minor blemishes. Everything works perfectly and the warranty is still the same, they just have a very slight cosmetic issue. If you don't want to wait for your normal pre-order, let us know and we can send one of these out to you with next-day shipping.
New customers: We also have some factory seconds available at a discount. These work fine and are covered by the normal guarantee. But they come with a US$100 discount because of an issue with overall surface quality from molding. Don't worry, it is not visible at the top of your mast. If there are none in stock, the shopping cart will give you a message. When we have these available, they have next day shipping. See the shopping cart link for Factory Seconds on the bottom of our accessories page.
Update on Wind Instrument Shipping
The recent mid-year update to our molding process is complete now. That slowed the production, but is an important improvement that will keep your Wind Instrument on the leading edge for years to come. We don't use a clamshell case with a gasket that gets condensation inside and that will inevitably leak. We have developed an advanced system for encapsulating the electornics in the tail in a thin layer of solid plastic. This keeps your cost low, and does its job well. This is the only masthead anemometer that is submersible (so it even works with small sailboats that can flip). The manufacturing is back to normal, with double the molding capacity now. We will be catching up on the worldwide pre-orders as quickly as possible through August. It is not practical for us to respond to email asking when in future a package will be sent. We can't estimate that with any degree of accuracy, and individual correspondence about shipping timing takes our personnel away from technical support and manufacturing/shipping. The estimated timeframe for new orders is shown on the web site order page 24/7, and existing pre-orders will obviously be faster than that. We send all orders by FedEx, and email a tracking number when the package is sent.
SailTimer Mini-Server™ Coming Soon
The SailTimer Mini-Server™ is being finalized now. There are some interesting new capabilities with this new product. It is a small and submersible. It runs on 12-volt DC power, has both Bluetooth 4 and wifi, and has wiring connectors for NMEA 0183. That means you can receive the wireless Wind Instrument transmissions, and send wind data to your wired network and cockpit displays.
The Mini-Server can also display a wind gauge on any device with wifi and a web browser. So it can receive wireless wind data from the masthead on Bluetooth 4, and you can view the wind speed and direction on a PC, on a mobile device browser, or even on an e-reader (which is easy to see in direct sunlight, inexpensive, and has very long battery life).
As another example of how we are opening up innovative new capabilities for sailors, the Mini-Server stays on your boat in the marina when you go home, and runs on 12-volt power. It can connect to marina wifi. That means that for the first time ever, boat owners can be at home or office and check wind conditions at their boat.
That data can also be sent to our crowd-sourced wind maps, for live wind data from every marina where our Wind Instruments are.
We hope to announce the official launch date with photos and specifications in the next newsletter. The Mini-Server can be pre-ordered now for US $350. It is likely to be shipping in 6 weeks. So far, we still have about half of the initial production run available for new orders.
