Nautical units

Thanks for not answering any question from my post.

Not all data fields listed in the manual are supported in every activity type.  I don't have my Instinct Solar in front of me right now, but on my fenix6, only the "Boat" activity profile supports the nautical data fields.

As Chris mentions, the Quantix is Garmin's offering specifically for the boating/sailing crowd.  But its price point is a bit higher than the Instinct.  The spec table on Garmin's site shows the Quantix supporting Boat, Sailing, Sail racing and other boating specific features that the Instinct certainly does not support:

As for Connect, I can take any saved activity and convert it to a sailing (or boating) activity type and the distance/speed units are converted to nm/knots.  So, this means you can use the Instinct (whether it has a boating activity or not) to record your sailing as a generic activity type and change the activity type to sailing in Connect after you sync the watch.

Hopefully that helps a little.

EDITED to note: the image D_Estes includes for the SPECS is the Quatix 6.

I apologize for not going over each of your questions. I was short on time and meant to come back to your thread today.

The Instinct and Instinct Solar have a nautical data field when you refer to the manual.

- Data Fields

In the System settings, both the Instinct and Instinct Solar series, the overall watch Settings for the default Units menu does not contain any boating fields. The system wide option shows miles/kilometers.

However, the Boat APP itself does have both nautical speed and nautical distance. (Please refer to the manual posted above that contains all data fields so you are aware of all data field options that you can modify within all activities including the Boat activity.)

As for whether nautical related fields show correctly in Garmin Connect, I have not come across that personally. I believe what D_Estes added will hold true.

The reason I pointed you to other series outside of the Instinct and Instinct Solar, you will notice if you go to their sales page and look at the SPECS, like the Quatix 6 series SPECS that D_Estes posted, there are no boating features listed for the Instinct series.

Both the MARQ Captain and Quatix 6 series show Boating features for their specs.

Just to be clear, the specs I posted are for the Quantix 6, not the fenix.

Hello everybody,
I spoke to Garmin Italy yesterday and they confirmed that Miles and Knots can be set on the Surf version

Hi, I have an Instinct, I use it for windsurfing (I used to race in the 90s using countdown timers etc, but not now)

By default, there is one activity called 'Boat' which is in nautical miles.  The icon is a motorboat.  I used this to create a custom activity called 'Windsurfing'.  It did not retain nm and knots, so I have to 'make do'. When uploaded into Garmin Connect, the activity type remains 'Boat' and I have to manually change it to 'Kite and Wind Surfing'.  (This also happens with a custom activity I have for pilates, it uploads as yoga, and ignores the name I created)

I might be missing trick, but if so, it's a hard to find trick.  I think the price level doesn't allow more flexibility.

Also, the Instinct cannot use the IQ custom apps, where there are a couple of very decent sailing apps.

The Fenix can use those apps, but I was not prepared to spend over 500 on a watch, so I compromise with the Instinct.

If you can compromise, then the Instinct is perfectly functional, has a decent battery life and records everything I want.  On the water stats like current max, 2s max 10s max etc are nice to have, I don't need them.  I can always load the track into gpsspeedsurfing for that stuff.  Which will also has a more accurate algorithm.

I had same experience making a custom app for Pilates.  The custom name is not synced so it stays as yoga (or Cardio for my HIPP version)

If you want decent sailing functions, then do not buy the Instinct, get a Fenix and load a decent sailing app, or get one of the recommended 'marine' marketed watches.

If money was no object, I would get a Fenix 6 and use the custom sailing apps.

1. Hi Chris! I really appreciate watch itself and that it has the boating activity with at list some nautical units support. However (since there's no way to choose kn/nm in settings), some of the main options are still only in km/mi - distance to next WP or dist. remaining for instance, and also related things like VMG or XTE (Off Course) as well. The distance to WP is quite important and the app just seems to be incomplete... I mean we already have most important fields like nautic speed, bearing and log (nautic distance) although still missing nautic distance to WPs. Hope you guys can add this option(s) in one of the updates (would be great!). Thank you in advance!

Gsrmin, 

i just bought a Quantix 7 with purpose to use for sailing. 
disappointed that I can use this for nautical units when reading speed and distance but not when using it for navigating like distance to next waypoint or VMG. Have this been fixed by now or how can I get around this problem? Do I download an app that does this for me or how do you fix this?