FLIR Night Vision versus dated Raymarine rader

[Alastair A]

All good advice above, as I see it. Thanks especially for the special tech stories. For boats, I suggest a focus in the next few years on using and knowing your vessel in all conditions. Knowing and preparing the "un-sexy" vessel basics/ equipment essentials for all weather conditions and safety situations comes first. All technology will be different when you plan to commit to a 2020 departure. Sort it then. You will know your vessel and your sexy-tech will be cheaper and up to date for to your main future challenges. Good Binoculars are golden anytime. Have fun. A

[buzzstar]

Short answer: No, but it is up to you. There is not much to "see" via IR that is not visible by radar, and a lot is visible via radar that is not via IR. While not a direct comparison, use some of your $ to purchase night vision glasses. Not much to see except maybe in a marina or a crowded anchorage. That is one of the beauties of cruising, rarely are our equipment preferences exactly alike, nor do they need to be. He who pays the piper calls the tune, or different stroke for different folks. As someone else suggested, you can have a lot of other neat stuff for the price.

[Wolfgang6]

Originally Posted by George DuBose

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About binoculars...I read that Fujinon's Polaris Marine Binoculars - 7x50 with Compass had the best ratings of all the compasses on the market.

Fujinon Polaris Marine Binoculars - 7x50 with Compass

Although they aren't night vision devices, they work very well at night.

I bought the $800+ Fujinon Polaris in June and it is now gone bad ( one side compass is not working, i.e. have to close one eye to see ). Yes, it is under warranty but after you pay shipping and handing you have to assume they believe that you did not drop it, which I did not. Have no clue why it had problems all of a sudden one day. I have therefore to just live with it and close one eye if I need to use the compass.

Yes, this binoculars does collect light very well, dark places in the day time show up much brighter.

As for FLIP, thanks for all the advise. Decide not to do it. You guys just saved me from having to explain to my wife why I need to spent $5K on night vision

[fatherchronica]

In the late 1980's and early 1990's I lived in a city of almost 30,000 indigenous people in a jungle on the coast. There was no running water there ever, no phones, and electricity was only available to a few thousand people a few hours a day several days a week usually from 3 old Czechoslovakian diesel generators that produced maybe 90 to 100 volts depending on which one was in running condition. There was no street lighting and at night, especially without a moon and when it was tropically overcast it was pitch black. On occasion I would walk at night from Disco Jumbo to where I lived on the second floor of Disco Mahogany late at night. I literally could see nothing at all. I would use the edge of the gravel and sometimes cobblestone road and the drainage ditch on the side to guide myself home. I could not see houses except every once in awhile a dim glow of a kerosene lamp through curtains that cast so little light that only the window was revealed. I was always amazed that the locals not only saw me when I went by, but would greet me with usually something like" hey Bossman, how you doing tonight?", or " give me a dollar papa". I could not even see the house whose porch they were on. So years later when we went cruising I wanted a Flir so when we walked on deserted beaches at night I would know whether they were actually deserted. We liked having it aboard but usually forgot it was there even once anchored for several days in a bay where whales migrating would pass us in the dark. It is just the little handheld one. The most usage we ever got from it was when we bought a truck and camper and went on a one year camping trip. Once on that trip we were in a deserted campground and I was walking around in the dark looking for where some deers bedded down and all of a sudden there were a bunch, as seen through the Flir, of small poodles running around me. A couple days later a couple stopped there and while talking with them I told that story and they said they had been there before and the animals are foxes that will sneak through your campsite at night and if you put out popcorn will gather there to eat it. So I did that and sure enough aw a bunch of them. They still looked like poodles to me through the Flir, but were likely foxes I suppose. We have seen a lot of animals, nocturnal and otherwise and wandering homeless folks, but we never needed it, or at least remembered it in time while we were cruising to be of real value. Still, I keep it charged by our front door in our moderately rural home, and am glad I own such a device just for the novelty of seeing in the dark. The fellow who gave me the idea was a dock neighbor who was tricking out a 50 foot sailboat and as he was a vice-president at Raymarine had several remote controlled Flirs installed on his boat. Sorry for wasting anyone who reads this posts time.