"Jeff Morris" wrote ...
Bil Hansen wrote:
"Jeff Morris" wrote

Hilarious. However, I'm guessing you've never actually sailed on the
ocean, because if you had, you'd appreciated that most ocean buoys
incorporate the same design as the Davis into their fabrication. And
several sizes of the foam buoys you mention incorporate aluminum corner
reflectors instead of the cylindrical type.


Thanks for the gratuitous swipe at my ocean experience! Nicest thing
anyone
has said to me all day!

Well, gee, Bil. Al the buoys around here look like giant Davis
reflectors. Do they make them differently in Malaysia? I'm not the one
who brought this up, it was you, remember?

As it turns out, I have a Mobri near my masthead (you're right: I've
only
sailed from California to Malaysia, from where I now reply to you, on my
current voyage. I've heaps more ocean to cross and things to learn from
more
experience sailors) and I do more or less agree with PBO etc that Mobri
reflectors do not return much of a signal at any angle of heel (I base
that
on talking to cargo ships that could not locate me by radar). Because of
that, I don't rely on other ships seeing me: I watch out for them and
use a
radar detector when I'm not running my radar.

So, you're saying that you use and recommend a radar reflector that in
you experience doesn't actually work? Yea, that makes sense.

I must have erred in my writing! Or perhaps you misread me?

I don't recommend any radar reflector. I pointed out that (1) West Marine
has given Mobri bad press but (2) the USCG has seen fit to specify Mobri
reflectors as internal reflectors in some of its buoys (and I assume that
the USCG did tests of reflectors). I think the USCG specification is
curious. And tried to say as much.

If you read me as recommending any reflector by brand name, let me be clear
that I do not: I instead recommend that a skipper keep a good watch and not
rely on having a radar reflector.

My experience is that, in a seaway, cargo ships that I've called on VHF have
had trouble locating me (with a Mobri reflector) by radar. But the USCG and
the USN has never had a problem locating and, when it served them,
interdicting me. My experience is that at 3 nm most all sailboats, including
those with bigger reflectors than mine, show on radar as tiny dots (in
contrast to the Big Dot promised by the reflector that seems never to have
gone into production) that fluctuate in reflectance, because of heel etc.

I have no dispute with you about the external reflectors on buoys: but
they're bigger and more solid than a Davis Echomaster.

So what about you and your ocean experience: I'm guessing that you have done
more than three
circumnavigations?

Bil