I have been sailing for many years but 2016 was the first year that I have had a GPS. Now many amongst us might say that this post should be in the GPS and Speed Talk forum but I would say – nah – it’s a general topic. That’s because I am a general sailer (all my gear is free ride)- just out there giving it a crack.
I had thought about getting myself a GPS for a while just to see how far I was sailing in a session but I am just a poor simple tradie who does not understand technology so reading all the forums about the technical stuff just turned me off. But enough pushing by some guys I sail with and I took the plunge. And to be honest I wish I had done it years ago.
The biggest thing that I have noticed is that my sailing session does not end when I get off the water any more but rather when I get home and upload my session. I get to see where I sailed, how far I went and how fast I went. The other thing that I have been doing is collating the data for each sail so I can see where I sailed, on which day and on which gear. Might be a little overboard but hey – I am addicted to this sport. (better than being addicted to the TAB – which is what I keep telling my better half)
So my stats for 2016 are:
Number of days sailed = 64 (although I had GPS issues on 3 of these days so no data) (bloddy work gets in the way)
Total distance sailed = official 2912km’s but due to the 3 days of GPS issues unofficially I did crack 3000 for the year.
Number of different spots sailed = 9

Now I have also gone one step further and kept a track of how much money I spent this year on gear. Again probably overboard and definitely not telling the better half about this stat. My only outlays for the year were -
I bought a new sail, sold a board, bought a new board and bought a new fin.
But than in the last month I have broken a boom (bought a new carbon), broken a mast (bought another one and had my sail repaired) and broken a harness line so my expenditure went up significantly. So taking into account the money I got for the board I sold I am out of pocket $2835. So that’s a bit over $44 / sail. Without the breakages in the last month it would have been more around the $28 so hopefully will be a lot less next year.

So there you have it – if you are thinking about getting a GPS I can say that it certainly adds to the experience!!