Two meter troll wrote:
On Sep 18, 5:33 pm, wrote:
On Sep 18, 7:39 pm, "Wilbur Hubbard"
wrote:



wrote in message
...
: If someone has unlimited electrical power, is he likely to keep his
: Radar on all the time when he is far offshore? Offshore, far from
: anything else with a functioning radar system, what would prevent
: someone from detecting a sailboat before a collision. Assume clear
: weather.
Stupid question, I'm afraid. This is from the 72 COLREGS
INTERNATIONAL-
Steering and Sailing Rules
RULE 7
Risk of Collision
(a) Every vessel shall use all available means appropriate to the prevailing
circumstances and conditions to determine if risk of collision exists. If
there
is any doubt such risk shall be deemed to exist.
(b) Proper use shall be made of radar equipment if fitted and operational,
including long-range scanning to obtain early warning of risk of collision
and
radar plotting or equivalent systematic observation of detected objects.
In clear language if you have operational radar it must be used when
underway.
I hope this helps.
Wilbur Hubbard
Wilbur, you are a dumbass. I asked because this did happen. The
question is why it happened.
Would someone far offshore turn off his radar if he had unlimited
power?
What would keep a radar from seeing an approaching sailboat. The
sailboat had right of way but neither vessel had a lookout. The boat
with radar may or may not have had it on. Weather was clear and seas
were said to be 4-6'.
Related question, if the person(s) on the radar equipped boat had his
radar on and it gave an indication of a target on a specific bearing
but every time the person looked outside he did not see anything,
would he maybe think his radar was malfunctioning and ignore it
I see from ads that radars have different modes for "offshore",
"nearshore", "harbor". What do these modes do?

IME sail boats are hard to see from some angles due to much of the
reflective bits being down in the boat.
however i would ask how large the boats where?
if a ship is sailing around and has his radar set correctly he ought
to be able to see most boats signatures. Sea clutter can be a problem
but IMO its not to difficult to tune out most clutter. you watch for
the returns that are somewhat constant and use your glasses to
confirm. it is not standard practice to shut down radar when out of
the common sea lanes in fact on really big ships it is foolish, not
only can high end radars read known ships and let you know who it is
but some have a tracking system for up to 140 targets which it assigns
by signal strength and repetition.

I have never missed a sail boat with one of these systems (not saying
it cant happen). fact of the matter is that i have seldom missed even
floating logs and i can tell you that they work like a dream for pack
ice (two other things that tend to get lost in the clutter.)

most of the Modes the radar manufacturer's are touting are power
settings, long, medium or short range. some actually change the
emitter angle to give better returns at these ranges. Sounds to me
that both ends of this accident have fault. there should have been
watches on both boats.

my 2 cents


Two Meter,

I thought that was a really good reply. I would add a couple of things.

One is that reading a radar display is a bit of art and not all have
either the skill (desire/drive) to acquire.

I have seen radars malfunction and it is not always apparent. I got
severely embarrassed once by missing an aircraft carrier from a C-130.
I had the gain set to not see sea return and the gain drifted off even
further without my knowledge.

I bought a "blipper" or transponder for off shore runs. I don't have
unlimited power but it is "helpful" to a shorthanded sailor to have the
blipper alarm on. For those who may not know a transponder will give
you an alarm and send a large signal to the ship with the radar.

Thanks again.