Congratulations! It's a great boat and perfectly suited for type of racing you mentioned.
We recently replaced the masthead VHF chose a Vesper V1 with AIS. It's hard to overstate how comforting it is to see AIS traffic at night and let any concerned traffic call you by name. Our parts list:
- Vesper V1 with handset (you'll have to mount the GPS antenna on deck or on a Stern pulpit)
- RG8X coaxial cable (run free inside the mast)
- Shakespeare PL-259 gold plated connector x2 (solder and iron are recommended to make this connection bulletproof)
- Vesper VHF-AIS antenna (this is tuned between the VHF and AIS frequency and works adequately for both)
- mounting bracket - we re-used a simple bracket screwed into the mast about a foot below the masthead and it works well.
A little more fuss and cost than a simple VHF installation, but we'll worth the effort in my experience for nearshore overnight races.
Robert
J/92 #14 Never Settle
PL-259 Gold Plated Connector