Radar, liferaft or both

[Charlie]

Used mono radar can be had fairly inexpensively in the US at least. I think that they are worth their weight in gold. Coming down the US West coast there was a fising boat that seemed to be aiming at us. We tried to contact via VHF but to no avail. It was hard to tell what direction they were headed because they also had working lights on. Every time that we altered course to avoid them they seemed to head straight for us. The radar told us they had closed to within a half mile. Finally we just slowed the boat down and let them go where they wanted . About the same time a big freighter asked them what their intentions were. Radar made it much easier to understand what was going on.

My order of preference if money is too big an obstacle would be 1) radar 2) liferaft. I have both.

[Joli]

We really like the radar for two reason. Weather, the fronts are fairly vigorous around here. Moving the boat at night and measuring how far offshore we are.

The life raft is nice to have but it needs attention. You have to bring it in every year or two for service.

[Weyalan]

My vote:

RADAR is more important / useful
Take a liferaft as well only if it will help you sleep better at night (and I design liferafts for a living), but definitely have a 406MHz EPIRB.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by Annabel

My husband and I have a Jeaneauu 37 ft yacht, we are this year taking it across the Adriatic, Dubrovnik to Brindisi, then down to Bari, then over to Corfu. Is it more important to have a radar, life raft, both or neither.

It is only important if you want to make it so. The fact that you are asking this question tells me it is.

Decide based on the practicalities of either instalation and your own comfort level. Neither will save your life if they are not readily available and you are not trained in their use or deployment.