Next message: Rob and Sue Linehan: "RE: lv-ab: customs & imigration"
I just did an offshore passage with a 24 mile radar
mounted about 25 feet up the mast. Offshore I think
you want a radar that can see as far as you can afford
given that large ships are moving in excess of 20
knots and you don't have all that long to decide if
you are on a collision course and then do something
about it. Sailing downwind with a preventer on the
main and a poled out jib, course changes are
non-trivial and you want the maximum reaction time.
We found that the 24 mile radar, mounted 25 feet up,
often did not detect a target out further than 12
miles, but did sometimes, so we always started radar
checks at 24 and worked our way down through 12, 6,
and 3 miles. I was never entirely comfortable with
this setup, but the boat also had a radar detector
that could detect radar pings about 60 miles out ---
this was very useful because it told us when to start
being really careful with the radar checks. (Assuming
the other vessels all run radar all the time or at
least frequently - I know this is a bad assumption,
but when the detector starts beeping it does get your
attention.) This vessel had a gimbaled mount so I
don't know about the effect of heeling with the setup
suggested in the original post, but we were never on a
consistent heel more than about 10 degrees - more than
that and we reefed.
My point with this longish post is that the answer to
the original question depends on whether you are
sailing in a narrow channel, between islands, etc, and
need just short range radar, or offshore when I argue
you want the longest range you can afford and manage
to rig appropriately on your vessel (A 24 mile radar
can't see very far nounted at sea level).
--- wrote:
> > We typically
> > will operate at 3 to 6 mile range while navigating
> channels.
> >
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