Merits of radar

[sgoldman]

Hi fellow C350 sailors,

I am replacing the legacy C80, Smartpilot S1 setup with Axiom+, EV2 chart plotter.

This makes my analog radar unit obsolete and I have a decision to make.

This is a new boat to me and I sail on Lake Michigan and will be sailing on Puget Sound in the future.

With todays technology on phones and tablets is radar still necessary?

What kind of reasons for radar are there in 2022? Would Sirius and AIS be a better idea.

You can usually tell when a storm is coming by looking at the sky, listening to the weather radio and checking you phone while you have signal.

Thoughts

[D&M]

Two questions for you:
Do you get fog there?
Do you plan to sail at night?
If so you are better off with radar, if and only if, you are going to use it constantly during those times.
If I put my tin foil hat on, it will come in handy for radar fixing when they turn the GPS off when the war starts.

[Pgtjs]

Hi there, I live and sail from Semiahmoo Marina at Blaine WA which is about 100 miles north of Seattle. I have been here about 25 years and have sailed my C350- #392 here since new in 2006. I did not have radar on my previous boat: it had only rudimentary electronics and a bell and horn.

There is no question that Radar is a great tool around here and particularly if you plan to sail in the San Juans, the Gulf Islands (Canada) and up to the top of Vancouver Island. I circumnavigated the island once and one would be a fool not to have radar on the west (Pacific Coast) side of the island. On this side, the inside passage to Alaska starts at the top of the island and goes for 800-1000 miles of endless islands and narrow passages etc. I/m told the further north you go, the more prevalent are the fogs especially in August.

I belong to two yacht clubs, one US based and one Canadian. Perhaps 90% of those members who are active real boaters - not just weekend cottagers - have radar. In Aug to Sept we often have heavy fogs in this area which make even motoring dangerous until it burns off about midday. I have left Sucia island in the San Juans at 11am on an otherwise bright and sunny July day to anchor at another island 5 or 10 miles away and run into a mile or two of heavy fog - the fog patches are not uniform by any means. Heavy fog means visibility of less than 100 yards. In the old days we used to sound fog horns or better still, wait until it clears. In some of the Straits there is frequent heavy traffic including big ferries and commercial shipping lanes with container vessels moving with a pilot at 15 knots. You have no rights what so ever against them.

If you are planning on being located further south say around Seattle or Tacoma it is not so bad but as most boaters from there head for the San Juans and the Canadian islands up to Desolation Sound in the summer, beware if it is foggy. To my mind, many of them are inexperienced and are a menace - ie large 50' plus power boats on charter to folks not from this area and who dont know the tides and currents or rights of way let alone be considerate and courteous in anchorages.

Incidentally, I recall way back when 9/11 occurred. I was trying to get home from Canada and massive fogs occurred that week. I saw what looked like a large fishing boat on my radar about 1-2 miles ahead. I was trying to figure out which way he was moving - we have no rights against them either when they are working - when out of the blue, a rubber ducky appeared out of the fog about 15 yards besides me - with fully armed US Coast Guard folks telling me to turn away immediately - it was a Coast Guard Patrol Boat. Thereafter, I had to take a substantial detour in heavy fog against the tides (3-5 knots) to get home. The home buoy showed up about 2 hours later right in front of me and I was on the wrong side of it - at least the radar got me close! The fog was gone an hour later and there was the Patrol boat sitting a mile off in the middle of our entry channel!

Should you wish to discuss further, please feel free to call me - 360-371-3374.

Cheers, Geoff. Stevenson, SV Taeko !V, C350, # 392.

[sgoldman]

Thanks for the prompt and thorough replies. As a Lake Michigan sailor, we don't run into Fog that much, but it is THE reason to get Radar.

Thanks

Steve

[belladonna]

I don't know if this is relative to this discussion or not since I mainly sail in the Chesapeake Bay and close off-shore Atlantic Ocean waters. Anyway, I'm a Garmin fan running a 1222 GPSMAP chart-plotter and several years ago added a Garmin 800 AIS, which afterwards now consider an absolute necessity for commercial shipping traffic that I routinely encounter. Last year I found a few extra dollars and added the Garmin 18 Fathom radar on a pole on the transom. While it does come in handy during my infrequent night sails and in the occasional foggy conditions and I enjoy "playing" with it, the AIS is a much more useful tool, especially when it comes to safety around large commercial container and bulk-carrier ships. So, in hindsight I would have saved the approximately $4,500 (and I did the installation and connections myself) on the radar and spent it on something else or Lord forbid saved it. Having said that I realize that everyone's situation is different. Just my TC'sW.
Best regards,