If you bring them down to Mandurah, I'm sure we can round up a few test pilots. Hardie & Elmo spring to mind, might even have a go myself if there aren't any waves.

I guess this is for comparative testing. Top and average speed aren't going to mean a lot if you dont have instantaneous wind speed and bearing too. I would think it may be more useful to drag a hull behind a boat on a still day at a known speed and measure the hull drag with a spring balance or something.

just a thought.

Yeh thought about that but the idea is also to have some fun with the thing!! It will be next year so i'll have time to set up the procedure, thanks for the ideas and info guys, feel free to send some more!
Cheers

X-Man good luck with your project. Nothing better than being able to windsurf while pretenting to complete your thesis, especially if the Uni will pay for a couple of boards to test.

On a technical note, measuring resistance of hulls is extremely difficult if you want accurate results. The only real way to measure resistance is to run model trials in a towing tank so that the environment can be controlled. Full scale trails do work but it is hard to control all the variables. Then again sailing for days on end to get consistant data sounds like a great idea.

lol! thanks for all the links yoyo! Well the project hasnt actually been approved yet, still have to talk to the lecturers ... But its in the field of mechanical engineering so its related to materials, fluid mechanics... Some of the proposed projects we have seem like its just reaserch without actually doing much, hard to explain but yeh i dont see why they would refuse. I've made boards before so it wont take as much time as if i was a begginer, then anyway if its not for uni i'd like to do it for myself sometime!.
Cheers

Depends what you want.

The Foretrex is a proven unit. It is recognised by the GPS-Speedsurfing site for their rankings and it has the ability to be used as a start watch (tho' I don't know anyone who bothers to use this function). It's weaknesses are well known. No-one around here uses one without an Aqua-pac (if the water doesn't kill it, the Garmin supplied strap will loose it in a stack) and the 2 second speed (software) is taken with a gain of salt but because of averaging the 5x10 sec ranking and the 100m, 250m, and 500m are so close to reality it's not worth argueing about unless you're the WSSRC. 101 Foretrexs can be bought cheap from the US. The 201 can't 'cause the US charger (110V) etc.
The NaviGPS has it's own drawbacks. For some reason it shows only whole knots on the "max speed" but shows "speed" to 2 decimal places?? Why not 1/10 of a knot for both, who knows. I'm sure a software upgrade will fix that. It is a tight fit in the Aqua-pac (at least the one supplied by Roo). Needs a card reader to get the info out of the SD card but that is less cost than a Garmin cable for the Foretrex 101. One neat feature it has is a Navigation/sport setting. If you put it on "sport" it only records fixes if it has at least 4 sats. So theoretically there should never be any spikes.
Chris has been using both together but hasn't yet compared the data. I think he is leaning towards the Navigps as he sails at the top level (he got a 49.9kn 1 sec (software)on the Foretrex at Sandy but what was his real peak?)and the extra data storage (he sailed 150ks in a day last week!) but I'm sure he will let the forum know his views on the Navigps after he has had a good test of it.

Yo

Thanks yoyo, where would this cheap place in states be

Thanks YoYo. Bought a Foretrex 101 on the weekend from Johny Appleseed

www.ja-gps.com.au/Garmin/foretrex-301-wrist-gps/

Whilst a tad more expensive, preferred to buy from a shop where I can get some local support and they were very helpful. Also got the data cable and Small Aquapack.

Seems like a great unit so far, can't wait to get on the water

The original version lacked features, but it is a small operation and I guess they realized this and I beleive now have an updated arrangement which the Sandy Point guys (Ian Fox)are testing at the moment. Not sure if this "new" version is available yet. If you write a post on the Star-board "ask team" forum he might tell you more.
Don't forget the Navigps. I think it is probably the best option currently.