Has AIS throttled radar fits ?

maby said:
We had the latest Raymarine broadband radar on our previous boat and it was amazing - the resolution and close-in performance was so good that you could park the boat in a finger berth without taking your eyes from the radar screen. The new boat is fitted with the latest Garmin and it is not a patch on the Raymarine.
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I would say the same of the Simrad kit - though never had the need, maybe it was an absence of courage, to try it.

Arguably you should be able to see a finger berth that you want to use (and I would not disagree) - it simply shows the 'power' of the technology.

Jonathan
 
I'm not sure that I would wish to berth under radar but it would make a good party trick. I don't find radar overlay very helpful either. On my Raymarine plotter all you get is a mauve radar picture combine with the chart. The radar image tends to get lost in the confusion, and you don't get the benefit of multiple colours, wakes, or ease of adjustment that you get on the plain radar display. It is pretty easy to change between the two displays anyway, which is what I do as the screen is too small for the side-by-side display to be useful.
 
johnalison said:
I'm not sure that I would wish to berth under radar but it would make a good party trick. I don't find radar overlay very helpful either. On my Raymarine plotter all you get is a mauve radar picture combine with the chart. The radar image tends to get lost in the confusion, and you don't get the benefit of multiple colours, wakes, or ease of adjustment that you get on the plain radar display. It is pretty easy to change between the two displays anyway, which is what I do as the screen is too small for the side-by-side display to be useful.
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This is where having a small screen and WIFI pairing it with a tablet works a treat (you also need a waterproof case if you want to use it on deck).

Jonathan
 
johnalison said:
Could be, but not with my ancient iPad.
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One of your children would dearly love your old iPad - all you need do now is buy your wife a new one for Xmas and you can have hers for the boat :)

It worked for me - the only way I could have a modern phone, only 3 years old, was encourage my wife to have the latest model. My old phone went to a 8 year old and I got the very unfashionable (mostly now redundant featured, because I don't use them) 3 year old model.

Funny world.

Jonathan
 
Different radar technologies are a sideshow. AIS can only be treated as a valid substitute for radar in the open ocean where one is happy to take the chance of hitting anything other than a ship.

Close to shore, with dozens of pleasure boaters, fishing vessels which rarely transmit AIS, harbour walls, steel buoys, etc, the notion of AIS alone being sufficient is almost comical.

This will be instantly apparent when a pea-souper descends :rolleyes:
 
Now and again stuff arrives that hits you between the eyes, love at first sight. My list includes stuff like:

Dacron sails
GRP construction
Depth sounders
Self steering gear.

and later:

Roller furling headsails
Chart plotters

AIS kit also sits lightly in this roll of honour, a cheap technology with little downside. Personally, I bought into it almost as soon as I clapped eyes on the first working set.

I suppose it may have taken a few sales off Radar but only at the margins. Most folk with large boats have the resources to fit both; I cant imagine anyone fitting out a new yacht and excluding either.
The rest of us, the ragged trousered brigade, will probably soldier on using AIS alone, nothing else packs as much aggravation free punch for your £.
 
The problem is surely you never know when you're going to need radar to make a safe landfall. Who sets off in a pea soup? If you have to move in restricted visibility AIS will only partially "light your way" Want to risk it?

Some years ago, passing Zeebrugge harbour without benefit of radar I was hit by a sudden fog bank. I called up port control to clear the entrance when all of a sudden a large bow emerged from the fog and I had to make an emergency turn to save the boat. A very close escape, by luck. On returning to the UK, I went straight out and bought a radar - it is still installed ready to guide me to safety, and has done duty on other occasions.

Have AIS by all means but it is not correct to equate AIS ship identification with a radar picture showing the whole setting.

PWG
 
peter gibbs said:
Who sets off in a pea soup?
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I have done. Wanted to get to St Malo (if not that day, we'd have run out of time to head back) and didn't want to spend another day in the Isles Chaussey. We had radar, and a crew of three to do radar watch, navigation, and lookout. We had a French warship (or so I assume; she'd been anchored off the islands the previous evening) without AIS pass close enough to smell but not see, which would have been alarming had we not already been monitoring her approach on radar. Also quite a few small motorboats (from the sound) whizzing past, generally out of sight in the fog.

Halfway across, the plotter/radar picture started breaking up into a mess of stripes - the notorious Raymarine C-Series connector rot. Fortunately some firm pressing on the screen brought it back long enough to make St Malo, but the scare this gave us was the catalyst for a new modern plotter and radar. We would not have wanted it to fail permanently in those conditions.

Pete
 
It is sometimes desirable to set off in fog but in the knowledge that the fog will clear soon or when one is well out of harbour. I have done this quite a few times, and on more than one occasion have left radar-less companions behind to wait for another day. My feelings about radar are:
It is perfectly acceptable to set out (across the Channel or similar) without radar or AIS but more care is needed to avoid bad visibility.
There are many owners whose limited sailing or mileage doesn't justify the cost of radar. AIS can be very helpful to them providing they accept its limitations.
Radar is the gold standard for fog equipment but is less easy to use than AIS, which has significant benefits even in good visibility (and can see behind harbour walls). You don't always know when you are going to be 'caught out' in fog but radar may save your skin and marriage.
Class B AIS is a useful add-on. It might make you visible to others, or it might not.
 
peter gibbs said:
The problem is surely you never know when you're going to need radar to make a safe landfall. Who sets off in a pea soup? If you have to move in restricted visibility AIS will only partially "light your way" Want to risk it?
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I've left in those conditions, knowing that once I had cleared the coast the fog would clear.
In those conditions, Radar, Chart Plotter and AIS all have their (valuable) place. Radar picks up floating objects, CP gives you orientation and position relative to hard fixed objects and AIS confirms Ship and Pilot boat movements.
 
1978 Fecamp. Thick fog in harbour. Foghorns going. Only one of us had a radio (not me) let alone a radar. We've wasted a week in Boulogne with bad weather and need to get on. Shall we go or not?
31a%20copy.jpg
 
Sandy said:
The shoreline or a rain cloud does not transmit an AIS signal. :o
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Agreed. We were once hit by a line squall in mid-Channel during a night crossing. It had been spotted approaching on radar and we managed to dowse sails thus preventing what could have been a very nasty (and possibly expensive) experience.
 
Our thunderstorms are generated inland and can come off the shore as a row of distinct but overlapping cells. Visually, from offshore it simple looks like a wall of, rather intimidating, black cloud.

Radar offers the option of knowing which are the more violent storms by the volume of rain (though it is a moving feast) - and we have sailed between storm cells.

We would not be without radar (ever or at all) and if we were in busier waters would not be without AIS. Accepting many are unable to sit under pagoda trees - in UK waters I would prioritise AIS and depend on 'sailing skills' to overcome the absence of radar - as an earlier generation did. But radar i not expensive - it just an iPhone X?!, or ???

It all about compromises

Jonathan
 
johnalison said:
1978 Fecamp. Thick fog in harbour. Foghorns going. Only one of us had a radio (not me) let alone a radar. We've wasted a week in Boulogne with bad weather and need to get on. Shall we go or not?
31a%20copy.jpg
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I've noticed this before, you're a bit of a dab hand with a camera :D
 
I suppose, these days, it is more likely to come home early or not leave the finger berth if
the fridge doesn't work . :)

Perhaps one of the reasons we go sailing is an inbuilt drive to journey with a degree of uncertainty. The modern diesels are great but things will always test us out. It's all about the inward journey in'it :)

What was the original question again ?
 
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