WEEMS & PLATHHand Bearing Compass Model 2005

Wow. This is a fantastic piece of equipment and better than I even expected. It is totally unlike any compass I have ever had before. It is super easy to use and read. Just point and read the bearing through the prism, which is easily read by my poor eyes with no corrective lenses. The magnification makes reading down to a single degree possible every time. I am very impressed and pleased. This will be a great addition to my sailboat and my racing.

This is a really nice "hockey puck" style compass for taking bearings from a small boat. It is good enough to be able to take bearings to the degree. It isn't cheap, but is really durable and comes with a lanyard to avoid losing such an expensive device overboard. The prism for reading bearings magnifies the compass card and makes it easy for a person without great near vision to read it.

This is great for shooting bearings, it's easy to confidently get within a degree if the boat's not moving too much. The luminescence is great and I really like that it lights up without needing batteries. It feels rugged and well built.However, I took 1 star away because I've found it very difficult to use this as a regular compass, laying it down on a seat or something. The window that shows your heading (on the right side in the picture) is magnified, which means that if you're not looking directly down it's quite difficult to read the heading. Of course most of the time you'll use your main compass for this, but as a backup or a dinghy compass it would be better if the viewing angle was wider.

Other "hockey puck" compasses on my recent sailing class had lubber lines. This one does not. With practice I guess it doesn't really need it. Just line up the target with the scale.

Very easy to read, even for a old guy like me. It can be used to sight objects by holding it up at eye level or by looking down at it. Nice addition to my navigation kit.

This is my hand bearing compass I use for sailing and primarily for Race committee duty. It is an essential sailing tool. This is easy to use. The housing has the perfect texture and the compass is easy to hold and make sightings.

I just opened my new Weems & Plath hand bearing compass and there is a 1/8" bubble in the compass that sits entirely over the red reading line under the magnifying lense.Is this compass defective? Is there typically a bubble in these compasses?I've given this a one star rating until I use the compass simply on the premiss that I don't think there should be a bubble covering the sight line.

Nice, but too expensive. I've seen older models that were less expensive AND easier to read.