Sailboat data acquisition

Hmmm, for a model, I would have thought a windvane at the top of the mast with a control rod running down the mast through the deck to a disk with a small magnet, rotating over some Hall Effect Switches mounted arounf the edge of a disk, would do the trick.

You can get 12 of these on one quarter of a 25mm disk, which would give terrific resolution, and if you could acquire the data into the same data stream, it would make life a lot easier.

I would love to avoid having to 'roll my own' Arduino system method, but .....


edit: handy link to items in australia http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=XC4242