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This
year is our fifth annual survey of equipment used by yachts in the
Atlantic Rally for Cruisers from the Canary Islands to St Lucia.
We believe this represents the ultimate road test of gear used in
anger in the field, and we have brought it online so you can see
for yourself how gear fared.
Our
survey is an entirely independent assessment made by the skippers
themselves and it covers a broad spectrum of yachts from 30 to 100ft,
each sailing nearly 3,000 miles. What follows is their unvarnished
opinions.
This
year, our survey was completed by 139 skippers. They were asked
to specify the make and model of equipment used in the 12 categories
listed here ->
They were also asked to rate them 1 to 10 for:
- Reliability
- User
Friendliness
- Value
for Money
The
database of their answers can be accessed by clicking on any of
the categories on the right and includes skippers' personal comments
on equipment and any failures they experienced.
We
comment on this in more detail in the magazine in the July and August
issues of Yachting World. In July, we examine the results for Autopilots,
Wind Self-Steering, Sailing Instruments and Charting Software.
In
August we look at communications equipment - Iridium, Inmarsat B
and C,
Mini M, HF radio - and some associated problems on the ARC this
year with
e-mail for HF radio. We also look at how watermakers fared and rank
gear
according to how useful skippers found it on the crossing.
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