I want to buy a hand held GPS, but not sure which model. I'm looking at a few Garmin models. Does anyone use a GPS, and what is your opinion. I'd really like to see what sail adjustments do to my speed. Are the GPS units out there accurate enough for this? I'm not a racer, just trying to improve my technique.
P.S. Had a great day sailing in Santa Barbara yesterday! About 75 degrees, no clouds and 10 knots. What a beautiful day!
Don't forget that if you sail in an area where you have current, this has an effect as well.
Imagine a river, you sail with 8 kts against 2 kts current, the GPS would show 6 kts, even if you actually make 8 kts through the water. So keep this in mind, when you try to figure out your technique, sail trim or things like that. GPS groundspeed is what you need for navigation the speed through the water, normally measured by an impellor log, is more helpful to figure actuall sailing performance.
Of course if you go sailing in a lake, currents are no factor. But where I go sailing most of the time you can me quite a speed through the water, without moving to much actually.