Check out this windmeter, guys.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort_scale .This is what I'm talking about and have been using for the past 20 years. Interestingly, Gestalt, my perfect kit has one sail for each Force, ie, Force 5- 5.4, Force 6- 4.7, Force 7- 4.2, Force 8- 3.7, Force 9- stay at home and mow the lawn.
I can see the bay from my office window. Of course, I never just gaze out the window thinking that I'd love to be out sailing- (work is always soooo riveting), but over the years I can pick the windstrength to within 1 knot of the Bureau reading at Fawkner Beacon, just by looking at the seastate, especially the frequency of the whitecaps. The beacon is a couple of k's offshore, so it gets clean, uninterrupted wind, so I think it's pretty accurate.
Other observations for windstrength, for what it's worth:
1. If it's Force 5 or greater, you don't hear birds in the trees. Generally, the sound of the wind in the leaves will be greater than birdsong.
2. Ripples on the water are rounded in force 4, so the water usually still has a smooth and reflective appearance, but at force 5, they form sharper peaks, making the surface of the water less reflective. Looking out to sea, this makes the water, especially where there are gusts, to look darker. But the trick with this is that sometimes cloud, or other things can also make the water loook darker, so what you think is a gust really isn't.
3. Over a certain windstrength, whitecaps sometimes aren't as pronounced, as if the wind is knocking the tops off them before they can break. So if you feel that the wind feels strong, but you can't see as many whitecaps as you'd expect, then it may actually be stronger than it looks.
4. Look for the frequency of whitecaps, not just their presence. If they are just appearing on a slowish cycle- flash....flash...flash, so your eyes can catch each one as it appears, then it's probably Force 4 ( and not exciting enough for MikeyS to rig up). But if your field of view is filled with whitecaps appearing quickly- flash.flash.flash, to the point where your eyes can't dart from each whitecap as it appears to the next, then it's probably force 5 or more.
5. Don't confuse ripples and waves generated by currents with ripples form wind. Local knowledge required here. Looking at the water at Inverloch, where there is a big tidal movement and where I hadn't sailed before, I overestimated windstrength. Need to rely on the wind in face, branch movement observations there.
Lots more I could add, but the instruction book would be really long. And every time I rig up wrong, that info goes back into the neural database for next time, so the system is always improving.
And despite all of this, yeah, an anemometer would be good to add to the toybox.
Cheers
but i tend to do a lot more dredging when i don't use it, i've been around the water now for almost 18 years. and i gotta say, i can't pick wind strength.
i was thinking of buying another. Toots has had exactly the same one for a couple of years now with no probs.
