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Suunto Orca Kayak Compass (Black or Yellow) | 
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| Brand: Suunto
Category: Sports
Buy New: $30.69 - $54.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 46762
Media: Misc.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Features:
| • | Fits kayaks of varying shapes and sizes | | • | Rubber cord and hooks make it easy to mount and detach | | • | Can be hooked to the kayak bungee cords or eyelets | | • | Water resistant | | • | Tilting angle effective up to +/-30 |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The Suunto Orca Compass is rugged with versatile mounting possibilities and has quickly become a leader among kayak compasses. The Orca's luminous card can be activated easily with a flashlight and will stay lit for about twenty minutes. It's one of the smaller marine compasses, and has an operating temperature range of -21 F to 140 F. The Suunto Orca Compass is the perfect addition for your favorite kayak. The easy to mount kayak compass will fit on kayaks of varying shapes and sizes. Durable thermoplastic rubber housing will withstand severe weather and rough conditions.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Good quality but too small to be a primary compass for kayaking January 8, 2009
I've used the compass for kayaking a few times and it does what a compass is suppoesed to do - shows the direction.
The problem is that the markings are too small and too busy. It is almost impossible to see even in good daylight when mounted where it is supposed to be mounted - near the bow and away from the cockpit on a long touring sea kayak.
There are several reasons why one would want to mount it as far away at the bow as possible - to minimize the chance of dizziness due to looking down in waves, to have deck space for maps and spare paddles or other gear that needs to be accessible and within reach, to minimize water spray in the face from waves hitting over the deck, and I'm sure there are more.
The inner piece indeed glows in the dark though I have not tested for how long after the sun goes down. Soon after light exposure it is bright enough to see in complete darkness - again, not sure how long it will stay bright enough.
If you decide to mount it close to the cockpit on a kayak, then there is another issue (besides the cons listed above) - the non-see thru bevelled edge on the window may fall where you want to look thru to see the scale and thus you would need to duck down or stand-up to actually see the numbers. I still don't get it why they did the bevelled edge the way they did - a half sphere would work just fine instead of this squarish window...
Another issue is that there is no way to set a bearing as there is with more "advanced" units - there is no rotating bezel independent of the magnetic unit inside.
Overall - a nice little compass that would probably work fine on a short kayak for light use or as a backup compass. But IMO it is not suitable as a main compass on a 19 foot expedition kayak and serious naigation due to the small busy scale and the lack of rotating directional bezel.
 Out standing Product January 31, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Very good product,easy to install and very visible. I wouldn't go kayaking with out it.
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