"Gfretwell" wrote ...
Fat Albert uses the finest US "look down, shoot down" RADAR.
It is used to spot small fiberglass sailboats. A pickup truck would
glow like a highway flare.

They made it 50 miles... Only had 40 more to go... Anything that would have
slowed down aquisition might have made enough of a difference that they
might have gotten ashore... Even though the Coasties new the general area of
the 'boat', they still had to get a visual on it... The initial visual is
done by aircraft... The yellow tarp really helped in that case... Once the
aircraft has the visual, the Coastie boat intercepts the craft... They don't
send out the boat unless they have a confirmed visual sighting since it
could be a legitimate vessel... I fly along the Gulf periodically and from
1000 ft, a small boat is not very visible unless there is something that
contrasts with the surrounding sea... Hell, I've had cases where I was
directly over the top of a small airport and couldn't even see it even
though both my LORAN and GPS said that I was within 0.1 nm of it...