I built a plywood board equal to the bottom two hatch boards and attached a level, clips for lanyard items like Garmin and phone pocket, pouch for stuff and a two cup holder that expands to four cup holder for my m15. Painted it white, expecting to modify to a future nicer version, but it works fine and the nicer version never got made. I figure in case of catastrophe two boards high is better than one, and with stuff up higher, they don't interfere with the mainsheet. I was thinking about mounting a compass on there too, but my lake is really too small to justify a compass.mike hettlerm-15 Annebonny From: George Iemmolo <griemmolo2@gmail.com> To: David Grah <d_b_grah@yahoo.com>; For and about Montgomery Sailboats <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2015 9:58 PM Subject: Re: M_Boats: Montgomery 15 Compass Options David As to your mounting question I am in the process of building a board that is similar to the bottom of my Hatch Board set that will hold all my small boat instruments. Compass, Wind meter, SPOT and Barometer I still have room left over for a gimbaled cup holder for Coffee or H2o. 😀 George George "We Can Not Control the Wind But We Can Adjust Our Sails" On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 7:45 PM, David Grah via montgomery_boats < montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> wrote:
This summer, during a week on the Great Slave Lake, I had occasion to have to navigate through fog in unfamiliar waters with rocks and islands to run into. I had loaded a number of way points into my GPS but not enough to navigate in the limited visibility. I relied heavily on chart and a compass and it all worked out. The compass I carry on our Montgomery 15 is a very simple handheld compass (a Ritchie Navigation SportAbout Hand Bearing Compass http://www.westmarine.com/buy/ritchie-navigation--sportabout-hand-bearing-co...). I worked well enough for us to survive in fog on the big lake but it only would read right if held very close to level to the horizon. As a result, to read it I had to hold it carefully level along with steering and navigating. I'd like to find a better compass option. Ideally the compass wouldn't be permanently mounted so it doesn't take up valuable surface that I might want to lean against at anchor but could be deployed at read easily at all angles of heel when underway. What good compass solutions have the fine people in this group come up with? Thanks! David GrahBishop CaliforniaMontgomery 15 - Sky