Joe wrote:

I'm not a proponent of total immersion in the radar hood, though at
times it's necessary. I have always preferred to pull back, at times and
rest my eyes and attention .... sometimes, you might be able to see more
than you expect .... it's a total awareness thingy.


Thats OK at night or offshore, but not a good ideal in the day or
river....
It's a night vision issue. Fof blindness is somewhat like snow
blindness

Understand what you are referring to, but we'll have to agree to
disagree on this.
In many if not most cases, now, the "daylight" screens tend to solve
this problem. The greater problem applies to normal visual lookouts who
are staring/concentrating while scanning the horizon, as well as those
staring/concentrating on the radar screen ..... they tend to develop a
narrowed response to the overall picture, which causes them to miss some
things and I have frequently been surprised that when I look away, then
look back, that I pick up something that I was missing before .... G
not the easiest thing to explain.





If you can not see your bow, whats he going to see or prevent at
20kts?

G One never knows for certain. Again, I'm not necessarily advocating a
constant visual lookout, but more of a split visual, radar, hearing, for
the designated lookout, in your case..... each case can and will vary.



Plotting.... not often unless coming up on a seabouy with inbound
traffic or offshore. On the crewboats we did little plotting, but
supply and tow boats we plotted most targets, always when we were the
lead tow on a jack-up or semi.

On a tow, you are apt to have more time ... on the crewboat, you might
have to rely on the EBL and VRM unless you have ARPA capabilities.




Rivers and canals are the best place to do this. With flat water you
can tune a radar to see the wake off a canoe. The outline of the banks
can be as familiar as seeing it in the day. Tanks on the banks,
Hunting shacks, channel markers, islands, bouys, docks, tree clumps,
logs and even seagrass clumps can be tuned in to a crystal clear
picture if you know what your looking at, and know how to use the
tool.

Would he argue so strongly if I said the wheelhouse was equiped with
FLIR?

BG I'm waiting for them to come up with a lightweight, portable,
inexpensive unit, that I can carry with me.


Raytheon has a real cool unit you see on cop cars all the time now 7
grand.
not to portable, but awesome preformance. I know one crewboat the
Comet out of Freeport has one. We use to call the owner Capt. Gaget.
Totally tricked out boat.

Fraid that all the units I've seen to date are too cumbersome and/or
expensive for this "poor mans" application.

otn