This must-read roundup of electrical instruments by Dan Corcoran appears over at Panbo:

In the fall there were a lot of magazine articles on tools everyone should have on their boat including favorite tools, tools distance cruises should have, unusual tools, multi purpose tools, and so forth. In this article I bring some focus to tools of the battery operated kind I use on my boat.

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My friend Dan Richman has an excellent review of the Weems & Plath 4002 electronic barometer over at Three Sheets Northwest. Here’s an excerpt:

Watching the change in barometric pressure is a time-honored way to predict the weather.

Yet barometers don’t make that easy to do. Barographs, which chart those changes, are obviously far more useful. But traditionally they have been large, delicate mechanical devices unsuitable for anything except ships.

The Weems & Plath Electronic Barometer 4002 is a digital barometer with an LCD current-pressure display and a separate LCD barograph display. Retailing for $170 to $205, it’s an excellent weather instrument, ideal for home use and for consultation before a day sail. Yet it has numerous design shortcomings, and I’m not sure it’s weatherproof enough to be used on board. I do not recommend it as a timepiece, moon phase indicator, yacht-race timer or anything else it purports to be.

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We receive a lot of press releases. They’re extremely helpful to folks covering “gear and gadgets”, because they announce new products, demonstration events, and changes in the industry. Crucial information that we would not be aware of, otherwise.

But once in a while, I receive a press release that just confuses me.

Case in point: Why is there a press release in my Inbox this morning for the Davis Instruments Windex? Isn’t this product already installed on every single sailboat in the entire world?

OK, I’m only joking, it isn’t on every sailboat. But seriously, this product is so useful, especially for racing, that what’s exceptional and noteworthy is when you climb aboard a racing sailboat that does not have one of these installed!

On boats I’ve raced aboard, I’ve often heard it said that the fancy, expensive electronic instruments provide historical information about the wind. The Windex provides information about what’s happening right now. It sounds silly…how long could it possibly take for the electronic signals to run the cables and be processed and displayed on the cockpit instruments?

Too long, sometimes. In shifty conditions or especially tight races, helmsmen stop watching the instruments and stare up at the masthead, where the Windex is. It can be hard on the neck after a while, but the speed-of-light Windex-to-eyeball networking protocol is difficult to beat, and it does make a difference.

So I decided to run this press release. The product ain’t new, it isn’t NMEA 2000 compliant, and it doesn’t require a 100-page owner’s guide. In spite of, or perhaps because of, these attributes, it’s an essential piece of gear for sailors. Here’s the press release:

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