Many thanks for the continued suggestions.
I am glad to hear that some of you live in climates where you can go without clears altogether - I would absolutely love that!
I am also happy for those of you that are able to drive from the lower helm to get out of the elements.
We are all different though, and I personally don't like to drive from the lower helm as I don't have the visibility that I like - due to the design of the vessel you pretty much have to steer by chart only.
My climate is not friendly towards family members that are casual boaters - the next bit of land south of me is Antarctica. In general it is cold on the water here for at least 9 months of the year and cool for another 2 months. Nice Bahama or Queensland weather happens about 20 days a year. We boat over 100 days a year so that leaves me with 80 days of cold/cool.
I guess the point of the post was not to debate having/not having clears, but explore what options there were for replacing my old ones with more modern, low/no maintenance items. There is no debate in my situation - something is going back in there!
I have received some good responses to give me some items to research and I thank you for that.
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