Radar - Do You Really Need a Complex One

[Barry Jones]

It seems to me that with the plethora of navigational equipment available to the leisure boater these days, a radar is still useful in bad visibility and for position fixing, but you don't really need a complex one.

There are lots of radars out there at different prices, but does anybody really use all the bells and whistles ??

 

[aluijten]

In the end you don't is my guess. The way I see it you can a perfect Furuno stand alone radar for a modest amount of money (model 1623). The biggest drawback I see is that you get an additional screen that needs to go somewhere. If you have a good spot for it then it's a fine solution. All the additional features are nice but in essence not really needed. It's like with cars, you can also drive from A to B in a small car, even if A and B are thousands of miles apart. A big comfortable car will do the same, but in greater comfort.

 

[TomW]

Know nothing about these but was recently two miles off shore in fog and needed something. Have not enquired as to price, but what would a Faruno set me back complete, fitted and ready to go?

 

[aluijten]

The Furuno unit is something like 1200 pound, depending on the length of cable required. To the other costs, it strongly depends on what you want. Mounting it up the mast is the cheapest. My guess would be an extra 1000 pounds for the radar-dome mount, all the other small stuff (cables, switches etc.) and a days work for someone experienced.

 

[Boathook]

Know nothing about these but was recently two miles off shore in fog and needed something. Have not enquired as to price, but what would a Faruno set me back complete, fitted and ready to go?

I fitted my own radar a few years ago. Took a possibly a weekend with 2 of us. A lot of time was spent in routing the cable from the scanner and installing a power cable, fuses, etc from the batteries.

 

[Barry Jones]

Furuno 1623 is about £1200.

The horizontal beamwidth is pretty grotty though at 6 degrees (by-product of antenna size).

OK if you just want to see a coast, but not much discrimination in a busy harbour entrance.

You can get a radome support from Scanstrut and fit it yourself.

Commissioning by a Furuno dealer to authenticate warranty should set you back £100-200.

Personally, I don't like the menu's you have to go through to tweak the gain and sea clutter, although they do have presets for different sea states.

Know nothing about these but was recently two miles off shore in fog and needed something. Have not enquired as to price, but what would a Faruno set me back complete, fitted and ready to go?

 

[Boathook]

Furuno 1623 is about £1200.

The horizontal beamwidth is pretty grotty though at 6 degrees (by-product of antenna size).

OK if you just want to see a coast, but not much discrimination in a busy harbour entrance.

You can get a radome support from Scanstrut and fit it yourself.

Commissioning by a Furuno dealer to authenticate warranty should set you back £100-200.

Personally, I don't like the menu's you have to go through to tweak the gain and sea clutter, although they do have presets for different sea states.

I have found my 1623 very good - so far. I have not tried it in a busy harbour entrance but I suspect that if thick fog is around the number of boats out would be less. The 'menu' to alter the gain etc is a single button that when pushed takes you to the gain, sea clutter, etc. The 'toggle' button then allows the settings to be altered. It's all the other settings such as zone guard that get me confused!
To get the best out of any bit of kit it must be used a lot.

 

[Barry Jones]

Furuno is a very good brand.

I use radar a lot and I personally like having the ability to tweak gain and clutter when you change range, which is difficult when you have to press the menu button and toggle through using the touchpad to adjust bargraphs.

I guess you get used to it.

To get these as dedicated controls, you have to go to a much dearer Furuno/radar which does far more than I would need on a small boat.

I wouldn't trust guard zones on these small radars unless you are in very open waters, as it will get triggered by all sorts,.

The watchman mode is very useful to conserve power on a sailing boat.

In fairness to Furuno, its getting harder to find a dedicated radar as the vogue from other makers is to have an integrated one feeding a chart plotter and I'm not keen on this "all your eggs in one basket" approach for something as serious as anti-collision use in bad visibility.
So I'm glad that Furuno still make dedicated sets - the 1623 and 1715 aren't that big.

I have found my 1623 very good - so far. I have not tried it in a busy harbour entrance but I suspect that if thick fog is around the number of boats out would be less. The 'menu' to alter the gain etc is a single button that when pushed takes you to the gain, sea clutter, etc. The 'toggle' button then allows the settings to be altered. It's all the other settings such as zone guard that get me confused!
To get the best out of any bit of kit it must be used a lot.

 

[Bloater]

Having had radar on my last three boats, ranging from old to brand new systems I would say that one of the most important features was the ability to put a track on a distant target. Only the newer sets did this. It's one thing 'seeing' an object, but it is just as important to know it's course and speed and point of closest approach.

Also if you have a sailing yacht you should consider a gyro upgrade otherwise tracking targets doesn't work anywhere near as well when it gets rough.

 

[westernman]

Depends of course what you are using it for.

If you only ever use it in thick fog, then probably the most basic set will do what you are looking for.

I have radar, but use it may be once a year - in fog. Then I really need it. If the fog comes down quickly as it sometimes does, then the 1min 45 seconds warm up time on my radar set seems like an eternity.....

I have been down below watching the radar in fog and using the autopilot to zig zag between the small boats fishing. The lookout on the bow only ever saw the boats once we had past them

Despite sounding our fog horn every minute or so we never heard anyone answer back!

If on the other hand you are on a high speed mobo in busy traffic then I can see the use for a lot of the other fancy things such as ARPA and the like.

 

[pvb]

....I'm not keen on this "all your eggs in one basket" approach for something as serious as anti-collision use in bad visibility.
So I'm glad that Furuno still make dedicated sets - the 1623 and 1715 aren't that big.

I don't understand this "all your eggs in one basket" objection - surely a dedicated radar is equally "all your eggs in one basket"? If the radar breaks, it breaks; doesn't really matter whether it's stand-alone or part of a plotter.

 

[Barry Jones]

Personally I think ARPA (MARPA) is a bit of a toy on a small boat that is yawing with a continuously changing heading. The radar might give you vectors to 0.1 degrees but in reality, these will waver a lot - also using SOG from a GPS into the radar for this auto calculation can give you an error in your vector direction, which at night can often be at odds with the navigation light aspect you can suddenly see as the ship comes into view.

Using a radar on Head Up Relative Motion with relative trails will give you a pretty good idea what's coming at you.

Crossing the TSS in the English Channel is a bit tense when you have a stream of fast moving ships at right angles to your course. IMHO AIS is more useful on a yacht/cruiser, backed up by a simple radar for targets not showing on AIS.

 

[G12]

I don't understand this "all your eggs in one basket" objection - surely a dedicated radar is equally "all your eggs in one basket"? If the radar breaks, it breaks; doesn't really matter whether it's stand-alone or part of a plotter.

Yes, but if your multifunction display breaks then you lose the radar, the plotter, fishfinder and anything else you've got connected to it.
If you have a stand alone set then you only lose the bit that broke.

 

[Barry Jones]

Yes my point exactly G12.

I know I'm fighting a losing battle because the MFD option is cheaper (saves a display) and takes up less space and you can have the radar picture in the open cockpit of a sailing yacht.

The latter is one of the useful feature of the MFD in my opinion.

Also radar overlay is very useful (although I would prefer this to be available on the chart plotter without its display also being my primary radar display - i.e. radar overlay sent from radar display to the chart plotter).

 

[KellysEye]

Like others we only use radar in fog, a basic set does that job fine.

 

[pvb]

Yes, but if your multifunction display breaks then you lose the radar, the plotter, fishfinder and anything else you've got connected to it.
If you have a stand alone set then you only lose the bit that broke.

Not quite - BarryJones was talking about "..for something as serious as anti-collision use in bad visibility", plotters and fishfinders won't help in bad visibility.

 

[westernman]

Not quite - BarryJones was talking about "..for something as serious as anti-collision use in bad visibility", plotters and fishfinders won't help in bad visibility.

A plotter will help in that situation as you can easily go to somewhere shallow and out of the way where you have zero chance of being run over by a supertanker or by cross channel ferries.

 

[John_Clarke]

Having the radar image overlayed on the chartplotter image is a big advantage in that you can easily see which blobs are probably other vessels and which are reflections from the land, rocks and navigation marks. For someone who uses radar for a few weeks each each year the radar only image is most confusing and I find poor visisbility is quite stressful anyway. Without it I doubt if I would understand what I am seeing, or it would take up so much time I would not be able to cope with a fast changing situation.

The sets with radar overlay on a chart often also have MARPA which is very helpful to avoid the work of manual plotting and gives a very fast indication of the relative courses of other vessels. I find it easy to use and allows me to concentrate on planning avoiding action if it is required. However, you do need gyro stabilisation for it to give a reasonably accurate output - even with stabilisation it can show rocks moving at up to 2 kts!

The third advantage of radar overlay on a chart is that in rock strewn entrances or passages it provides a cross check on the accuracy of the chartplotter cartography and your position on it. This cross check on the visible outcrops can be reassuring when some of the reefs are submerged.

I have the Raymarine C120 with its large screen which I am very pleased with. It was recommended to me by a ship's captain and yachtman who, even with his experience of interpreting a radar image, finds it valuable.

A final consideration is the location of the screen. I find having the display in the cockpit is useful for learning in good visibility (I use it on all passages and it helps to pass the time when things are a bit boring). This location is good if you suffer from seasickness. If you are shorthanded it makes watchkeeping safer and easier. On most yachts it can be hard enough to find a good location for one screen so it makes sense to use this for both plotter and radar.

 

[snooks]

Having the radar image overlayed on the chartplotter image is a big advantage in that you can easily see which blobs are probably other vessels and which are reflections from the land, rocks and navigation marks. For someone who uses radar for a few weeks each each year the radar only image is most confusing and I find poor visisbility is quite stressful anyway. Without it I doubt if I would understand what I am seeing, or it would take up so much time I would not be able to cope with a fast changing situation.

The sets with radar overlay on a chart often also have MARPA which is very helpful to avoid the work of manual plotting and gives a very fast indication of the relative courses of other vessels. I find it easy to use and allows me to concentrate on planning avoiding action if it is required. However, you do need gyro stabilisation for it to give a reasonably accurate output - even with stabilisation it can show rocks moving at up to 2 kts!

The third advantage of radar overlay on a chart is that in rock strewn entrances or passages it provides a cross check on the accuracy of the chartplotter cartography and your position on it. This cross check on the visible outcrops can be reassuring when some of the reefs are submerged.

I have the Raymarine C120 with its large screen which I am very pleased with. It was recommended to me by a ship's captain and yachtman who, even with his experience of interpreting a radar image, finds it valuable.

A final consideration is the location of the screen. I find having the display in the cockpit is useful for learning in good visibility (I use it on all passages and it helps to pass the time when things are a bit boring). This location is good if you suffer from seasickness. If you are shorthanded it makes watchkeeping safer and easier. On most yachts it can be hard enough to find a good location for one screen so it makes sense to use this for both plotter and radar.

I agree with everything here, except I went for Garmin

 

[noelex]

Having the radar image overlayed on the chartplotter image is a big advantage

I agree radar overlay shows when the charts are wrong. This eliminates a lot of problems.

The concern about redundancy expressed by others is valid, but you can have a combined radar/ chartplotter with a second chartplotter as a back up. It just costs more