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Sea Kayak Trips Bulletin Board
Re: Compass Question
Posted By: Dave Sharpe In Response To: Compass Question (mike allen)
Date: Friday, 18 June 1999, at 7:04 p.m.
> What is the functional difference between a standard boat compass and a
> 'kayak' compass. For example Ritchie has a kayak compass and many others.
> Aside from the mounting setup and size does a kayak compass have a
> moveable marker for setting a course? Or if I can mount it can I use any
> other similar compass ( - I like other mounts and colours better.)> What functional characteristics does one look for in a good kayak compass?
> - mike
I made the mistake of using a Ritchie boat compass - I don't remember which model - when I first built my boats. I liked them because they had a couple little pins on either side that you could press in and pop the compass itself off the housing for storage. What I didn't realize was that the housing has a couple of short bars with tiny magnets at each end tha have to be precisely adjusted to get a corrected reading. Now this is fine if you need to adjust for declination (the difference beetween magnetic and true north), but I found that the vibration of the boat on the car racks, and the other indignities a boat suffers on land meant that the bars got out of adjustment and I had to adjust thos little bars constantly using my old silva hand-held compass. They were more frustrating than they were worth so I finally switched to the deck compass sold for sailors and kayakers by CLC. It's a lower profile and looks better, but doesn't need adjustment constantly. It has a movable bezel so you can adjust for declination if you want to but I find it easier to simply leave it alone and use the rreadings as is without adjusting for true north.
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