STARLIGHT LED HELMING GUIDE

With its new Starlight system, sensor and instrument manufacturer Autonnic demonstrates how clever electronics can provide a visual sailing aid as simple and intuitive as age-old telltale yarns or a star to steer by. In operation, the active blue LEDs in the 26in-long light bar stay pegged to your desired course while the on-center fixed yellow LED marks your bow, thereby providing a constant reference point, not just for your steering accuracy but also for how quickly your error or correction is taking place. Better still, since the bar is meant to be installed near your visual horizon level (for example, along the top of the aft bulkhead of the cabintrunk) there’s no longer any need to glance down at a com- pass or conventional instrument display (let alone have to make sense of a bunch of changing numbers). The horizontal width represented by the bar’s red/green end lights is also adjustable, allowing you to better integrate the Starlight to such real-world of objects as faraway stars or closer-up nav aids, or to simply adjust how precisely your steering heroics will display. The light bar is fully dimmable and comes with an auto-brightness mode. In the works is also an NMEA 2000 model that will enable course setting by waypoint or wind angle. It’s fun to imagine how boatbuilders might elegantly integrate the Starlight technology into, say, the upper edge of a companionway instrument cluster or the aft end of a dodger. $318. Autonnic, autonnic.com