Looking for a good analysis of the different Radar technologies

[sailcrazy]

Following.....our 25 yr old Furono is due for replacement!

[Emouchet]

Those new technologies are great and of good help.

However, the more I use my radar, the more I realize that it really takes a dedicated crew member on radar watch while cruising (When you need radar of course, meaning night time, fog, busy area...). You need to pay great attention to the screen in order to make sure you do not miss anything.
This means the radar watch crew member is not really available for anything else such as situation awareness for instance or other navigation task.

[TPG]

Not sure exactly how to answer your question, but I'm building a new boat and am going with B&G also. When it comes to the radar I guess it's each person's preference for how they will be using it. Had Raymarine on my last boat and it was great, but I have looked at both the new Raymarine and B&G side by side and was sold on how intuitive B&G was to use. Guess we'll find out.

[JRO]

Radar? Why? Buy something useful or fun.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by JRO

Radar? Why? Buy something useful or fun.

Real cruisers are just laughing at you now.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Emouchet

Those new technologies are great and of good help.



However, the more I use my radar, the more I realize that it really takes a dedicated crew member on radar watch while cruising (When you need radar of course, meaning night time, fog, busy area...). You need to pay great attention to the screen in order to make sure you do not miss anything.

This means the radar watch crew member is not really available for anything else such as situation awareness for instance or other navigation task.

Yes, I think AIS is better for ship spotting for that reason alone.

But radar overlaying the plotter frees up a few mental channels. I find I use my current radar for very short and acute periods of navigation, be it fog, darkness, mooring fields etc, during which it replaces my eyes to some degree as I am steering, in real time as it were. I think the longest continuous use I’ve made of the radar so far would be less than half an hour.

This is why I am not dismissing the new technologies out of hand. Some might help during these acute periods of use.

Also, up until now I’ve been a solo sailor so I’ve had no other option. With my partner now joining me on the new boat, we may well end up with one person paying more attention to the radar in these situations, though I cannot imagine how the findings would be conveyed to the person at the helm.

[JRO]

Originally Posted by sailcrazy

Following.....our 25 yr old Furono is due for replacement!

Over the past twenty-five years how has Radar kept you alive? When do you use it?

[GILow]

Originally Posted by JRO

Over the past twenty-five years how has Radar kept you alive? When do you use it?

I can’t speak for sailcrazy, but I suspect they have had similar EXPERIENCES to mine.

Most recently when I had to seek shelter from bad weather in Bass Strait in the middle of the night. I was able to work my way into a tiny unknown, potentially poorly charted bay and anchor using just the radar and depth sounder.

You may be tougher than me, in which case, hop on out to The Bass and have a play when things turn nasty and let us know how it all works out for you.

Before that, in fog, in entering an unlit channel at night (radar shows channel markers where they REALLY are, not where the chart says they are.), anywhere boats might have anchored at night. Real cruising works that way, particularly when you are dependent on complex systems and wind to get you from A to B. A planned daylight arrival may not work out.

Me, I’m just a little less arrogant with the remarks and accept that there are situations I do not understand and I take a position that someone asking the sorts of questions I am asking might actually know what I need.

I don’t reveal my ignorance with such trite comments. I suggest you do the same.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by JRO

Over the past twenty-five years how has Radar kept you alive? When do you use it?

In 20 odd years it has been more than useful on a few occasions.
Once after over 40 days at sea without seeing a single ship and approaching the 100 fathom line off the Chilean coast the fog set in. Down to less than a mile and then down to less than a boat length in a short space of time. Turned on radar, counted to 60 and bingo, a big fat echo 2 points to stbd and 2 miles a way. A stationary fishing boat - we passed her maybe 2 cables off the beam.

Like Gilow a number of times entering unlit and poorly charted anchorages notably Milabu and Seno Cono where I always seem to arrive in the dark. Bear in mind the charts are often over a mile adrift in longitude down south.

Not that long ago we departed Caleta Lucas in lovely morning sunshine , 5 minutes later we were out in the channel with vis down to two boat lengths.
Apart from anything else we wouldn't have been able to find our way back into the caleta without radar. So we plugged on southward the 5 miles to the approach to Pto Eden. Luckily I already had a pre used track on OCPN so used that in combo with the radar. Rowing ashore a few hours later passed a French yacht at anchor. Paraphrasing 'Where on earth did you come from????'

Chartlet attached is about 1.5 miles top to bottom.

I don't use my radar very often but I wouldn't be without it.

Maybe you should try and get out more.

[Jim Cate]

[QUOTE]though I cannot imagine how the findings would be conveyed to the person at the helm.[/QUOTE

Shrieking "fer Christ's sake, Matt, there's a rock twenty meters ahead of us" comes to mind!

But really, mounting the display in view of the con is essential in any short handed vessel.

Jim

[JRO]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

In 20 odd years it has been more than useful on a few…
I don't use my radar very often but I wouldn't be without it.
Maybe you should try and get out more.

I don’t use it. I’m a pleasure boat without deadlines pushing me into nasty situations. I plan all my trips around nasty crap and really only use my chartplotters, fog horn and AIS.
If there is a fog bank I follow it or find anchorage. I have a 400 mile range and rarely travel more than 100 miles in daylight hours. I don’t hangout with the commercial crowd but all the pleasure boaters I’ve met have, but, never “really” use their radar… We don’t “need” to. I would bet that, in this forum, we pleasure boats represent 95% of the group… Maybe not.
I’ve only chased fish around Florida, the Southeast, 3/4 of the Bahamas, the Great Northwest and down to California… On my way to Mexico.

[rslifkin]

I've yet to add radar to my boat, to but it's definitely on the list. I've had times where visibility wasn't good, but it was otherwise perfect travel conditions that I passed up due to lack of radar. Same thing with night runs. Without radar there are limited places where I'm willing to run at night.

Being able to safely travel in a wider range of conditions is never a bad thing, although not necessary for everyone.

[GILow]

[QUOTE=Jim Cate;3593832]

though I cannot imagine how the findings would be conveyed to the person at the helm.[/QUOTE

Shrieking "fer Christ's sake, Matt, there's a rock twenty meters ahead of us" comes to mind!

But really, mounting the display in view of the con is essential in any short handed vessel.

Jim

One of the things I truly love about the new admiral is her utter calmness… on the other hand, it’s more likely she’d arrive in the cockpit and inform me that the loud crunching noise is from a rock that WAS 20 meters ahead a few moments ago, and would I like a cup of tea before I started bailing?

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by GILow

........, and would I like a cup of tea before I started bailing?

A keeper!

[sailcrazy]

JRO....seems plenty of comments have already been made, but let me add my 2 cents worth. All it needs to do is save your a*s one time-and it's more than paid for itself. After some 45 years of flying commercially, it's always the little thing, the thing you least expect, that can reach out and grab you by the short curlys! Our radar is not very good (it's really old)...but it still works. And works well enough to show me when we've had a map shift on the chartplotter, or the map that's loaded is just flat wrong, or something just does not agree with the real world. And rocks have a habit of being sort of unforgiving! Now add in a really dark, moonless night, or some fog, or some commercial boats (freighters, fuel tankers, fishing boats, we've seen them all making way)---without lights on-especially in Asia-and that radar pic is worth gold! Trust me-T-boning a fuel freighter at 6 kts will likely ruin your day. I can recount probably 6-7 specific times that our lousy little radar saved our bacon, and a bunch more times where it provided a "warm fuzzy", just enough to reassure us we really did have a handle on our situation. And, like I said, it only needs to do that one time over its service life and it's more than paid for itself .
When we sail at night, or the wx goes south, we sail with our radar, the AIS, and with our C.A.R.D. all on (no longer made, but it receives a radar pulse, amplifies it, and then sends it back as a large target-as it sounds an alarm for us). IF...you ever do go sailing, and everything always goes just exactly as you expect, ie, the wx is good, the sun is high, and nothing ever goes wrong....then I agree-you probably do not need to spend the $$ on a radar. But, after some 25 years sailing this boat in Asia, the Medd, and now the Caribb...Good luck with that!