Apparently AIS & RADAR not Adequate Substitute for Lookout

[Montanan]

Boris discusses his B & G radar and his display and alarms in this short YouTube video.

As to whether the radar is gimbaled or not can't answer that but if it isn't it would be severely degraded when the vessel is heeled over as is the case almost always with a racing yacht.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAQzos_EMlA

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Montanan

Boris discusses his B & G radar and his display and alarms in this short YouTube video.

As to whether the radar is gimbaled or not can't answer that but if it isn't it would be severely degraded when the vessel is heeled over as is the case almost always with a racing yacht.

The degree of signal loss from heeling varies considerably from radar to radar... largely depending on the design of the radiator. Some have sharp vertical cutoffs, others are much softer and can accommodate greater heel angles.

However, it is moot when considering looking straight ahead, as would have been the case with Boris's collision. Heel angle won't degrade the signal in that direction.

Jim

[Don C L]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

Re radar. MUST see a trawler. On a lake maybe. Must ... IMOCAs do not have open array antennas like you have seen on cruise ships. Rather small units and not always gimbaled either.



From a sailing boat in those conditions on winter Bizcaya it is very easy to nudge the gain knob a bit too far and then the fishing vessel basically sinks below wave tops. You are tuning in a rain squall, the squall passes, the tuning is off. Etc.



Less likely to make this mistake if you are warm and well rested onboard your Oyster, but very very easy to make when you are cold, tired and deafened by the noise. The boat is sailing semi-submerged. You are being tossed constantly.



When it comes to those AIS and radar alarms, they may have actually rang, but Boris may have acknowledged them when in shock wake-up mode. It is very easy to do something in a tense situation and not remember doing this 5 minutes later.


Again, he was 80 days in a race, conditions were very unfriendly, he was racing, it was night. I think few people understand this. I think very many people sail in comfortable boats, crewed, and short distances. It is different on a VG boat. Quite different from what many of us imagine.

As much as I would hope singlehanded sailing, or racing, will never be made illegal due to the inability to keep a proper watch according to COLREGS, you make a good point and one that may make a Vendee racer, or this kind of racing, seem more culpable. Under racing conditions the stress level is higher and the sleep deprivation worse, both of which make any consistent eyes-on watch-keeping more difficult.

[Jim Cate]

Under racing conditions the stress level is higher and the sleep deprivation worse, both of which make any consistent eyes-on watch-keeping more difficult.

On the other hand, Don, these racers are very experienced, trained by years of sailing, much solo, and that IMO will be more important than the stress level that you mention. By the late stage of the race they are well practiced in sleep management. They are just damn good at what they do, in ways that we can hardly comprehend. Kinda like I simply can't accurately picture hitting a 100 mph fastball, yet some chaps do it routinely.

There is no doubting that there are COLREGS issues with such solo events, but the continued blasé reaction of international officials to such events convinces me that they view the risks as being acceptable, and so do I.

I doubt that we will ever know exactly what interaction there was between Boris and the fishermen... the tale has morphed already and will likely continue to do so. My guess is that it quickly became obvious that there was no emergency aboard the fisherman, and Boris had very urgent needs to ascertain that he wasn't sinking. How that evolved into his departure from the scene has not yet been revealed... at lest to me. Until such details are
understood, blanket condemnation of either side is unwarranted.

Jim