Radar in Med during summer

[hoppy]

Next summer I am looking to venture out of the shelter of the Greek islands and are planing a sail to Malta from Lefkas and back again. I'm planning to sail direct, so it will be 3 or maybe 4 nights at sea each way.

I will have a AIS transponder linked to my Raymarine E7 nav station, so I will see any ships and they will hopefully notice me.

It sort of feels like a radar is probably an unnecessary expense.

Any thoughts?

[goboatingnow]

You dont really need it

dave

[Kenomac]

Just be careful and watch out for people like me who don't have AIS yet.

[goboatingnow]

litte bitty yachts arnt your problem , 50,000 tons of steel are.

dave

[hoppy]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

Just be careful and watch out for people like me who don't have AIS yet.

I'll touch base with you just before I leave so I know if I need to watch out for you

[noelex 77]

You will not see any fog. Radar is nice to have, but would not be high on my list of priorities.
The standard of ship watch keeping in this part of world seems pretty woeful. AIS will help, but don't expect miricales. A simple visual watch is more than adequate to avoid the traffic, however.
Radar generally just shows they are going hit you like a visual lookout will.
The biggest advantage of radar is to overlay a radar image overlay on top of map to highlight the errors in charting. Very useful for night approaches to anchorages, but if you restrict yourself to entering most anchorages in daylight the water is so clear that a visual lookout is generally the best.

[hoppy]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

litte bitty yachts arnt your problem , 50,000 tons of steel are.

dave

That's my gut feel. I also figure out that in the med in summer I'm not likely to be sailing in fog or into a harbour at night with non-lit boats at anchor.

[hoppy]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

You will not see any fog. Radar is nice to have, but would not be high on my list of priorities.
The standard of ship watch keeping in this part of world seems pretty woeful. AIS will help, but don't expect miricales. A simple visual watch is more than adequate to avoid the traffic, however.
Radar generally just shows they are going hit you like a visual lookout will.
The biggest advantage of radar is to overlay a radar image overlay on top of map to highlight the errors in charting. Very useful for night approaches to anchorages, but if you restrict yourself to entering most anchorages in daylight the water is so clear that a visual lookout is generally the best.

Whist I have not noticed it with my E7 yet, on an another GPS and my ipad I have been located on land when clearly I was not. So I can see that the radar overlay would be useful in an unfamiliar harbour in a poor visibility situation. My general thought is that I would hang out at sea and wait until daylight before entering the harbour. Once I am in Malta, then it will just be day sailing and radar will be little help spotting the sandbar when returning to Lefkas at night.

[hoppy]

My crew sailed in the Clipper RTW race between Aus and China this year and said they mostly used the AIS and only switched on the radar when approaching the AIS target. This got me thinking that perhaps the radar is not important for this trip.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by hoppy

My general thought is that I would hang out at sea and wait until daylight before entering the harbour.

Yes that is exactly what I would do. It's generally not a bad policy anyway.

There is something to be said for having technology that lets you enter an anchorage under difficult circumstances rather than remaining heaved too just outside, but even with radar, discretion is the part of valour.