Un-forecasted fog in the Med

petem

petem

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At some point we'll want to replace our ageing analogue radar and RL70C plotter with a more modern equivalent.

I can't see us ever undertaking any night passages or using radar to gauge the weather / storms. So my question is, do you ever get un-forecasted fog in the Med?
 
I have not tried to correlate if it is forecast or not but Mallorca does get winter fog but I have only ever known this overnight and never in daylight hours. Winter evening fog can be surprisingly thick on land.

In 12 years I have run into fog twice. Once outside Dover and the other on a sunny guernsey day.

I think you odds of day time in season fog is extremly small

I only use radar on long long crossings so I can see where help is should it all go wrong ( which to date it has not!)
 
petem said:
So my question is, do you ever get un-forecasted fog in the Med?
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Not often but yes

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It may be less of an issue with sports cruisers but personally I find it useful to have a radar at the lower helm for collision avoidance even in fine weather, if the sea is lumpy and there is spray on the screen. Its just an extra pair of eyes
 
petem said:
At some point we'll want to replace our ageing analogue radar and RL70C plotter with a more modern equivalent.

I can't see us ever undertaking any night passages or using radar to gauge the weather / storms. So my question is, do you ever get un-forecasted fog in the Med?
Click to expand...

I've never seen it in Mallorca from may to October, can't comment outside these times,but I'd imagine you must get some fog outside of the main season
 
We did in Croatia last year - unforecasted and went down to about 50 metres visibility for about half an hour. Decade of UK sailing meant it wasn't too scary but I had forgotten about the uncertainty of whether everybody else was being cautious or not.
 
petem said:
Did you have to make a custom bezel for the Axiom 9?
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Yes and I've been looking for the dimensions/drawings but they must be on the boat (in Spain) You will have to do a bit of dashboard hacksawing as well. I used plasticsheets.com and from memory it was about £50 and looked good in black to match the Axiom.
All the cut out templates are on the Raymarine site.
You probably already know but to use with your existing instruments or autohelm you will need a Seatalk to SeatalkNG converter which is about £100 from Raymarine.
Your old RL70C , radar and GPS is worth about £400 so be careful how to take it apart. (You wont need the GPS antenna with the Axiom)

Ah yes, The Quantum is bigger than the 2kw Raydome so best to check your space. Mine was OK since I guess they made the space to fit the 4kw version as well.

Next decision is whether to go wi-fi or wire connection to the MFD. I went wi-fi.
 
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The last time we saw fog on the boat was in Bayona (Portugal) on the way down to the Med - over 10 years ago.

Yes, we use radar - but only because we have it.
I would be quite happy if it wasn't there.
Certainly wouldn't bother upgrading an RL70 - just because of the radar.

An upgrade to an AIS transponder would be a much better use of the money.
Yes - I know that the RL70 won't take an AIS feed but these days you can get excellent AIS connections to mobiles/tablets.
 
Yes leaving Port-Gardian in the Golfe-du-lion in July about 5 years ago. Lasted for about 10 miles on our route to Marseille. Not a pea souper but vis down to about half a mile.

Nowhere else though in 18 years med boating.
 
petem said:
At some point we'll want to replace our ageing analogue radar and RL70C plotter with a more modern equivalent.

I can't see us ever undertaking any night passages or using radar to gauge the weather / storms. So my question is, do you ever get un-forecasted fog in the Med?
Click to expand...

I can't remember we've encountered fog in the med,
but I would encourage you to do some trips in the dark,
with our small 26ft and 28ft boats, in Croatia we very often went to a restaurant for diner by boat, and came back to our home berth in the dark,
absolutely lovely boating time with our family,
and the radar was a must for doing that safely.
 
Rare very rare fog in the season April to Nov in the Med .
Once in 14 years .
Berthed in Bormes ( about 1/2 way between Marseille and Cannes ) in June .
Blazing sunny weeks weather , blue sky’s ,no clouds etc - Flights home booked next but one day .
Woke up to pea souper .
Waited until noon , no change hmm , we really need to get going .
Noticed a few small boats like Mastercraft with skis etc going out !
How’s that work I thought ?
So I walked up on the sea wall to the end of the marina and could hear engines ,that’s seemed the normal revs .Sound travels faster in the thick fog .
Briefed the family turned on the radar .I had toyed with the radar in perfect viz before so was pretty confident.Even got a fog horn out .

Slipped lines and planned at 5/7 knots passage arriving Cannes very late 10 pm , so we could catch the next AM,s fgt home .

After about less than 2-300m of thick fog, which hugged the land out @ sea disappears to nothing .Stark bollock blue sky ,normal Med weather for June with water skiers etc all having fun .
So we just powered up to normal cruse 26/27 knots in The Portofino 35 dead calm flat sea .

It turned out there’s some sort of local inversion effect of cold night air dropping from the high hills into the Bormes bay .Water temp early June not quite warm enough so fog forms .
Locals know it’s only a few 100 M hugging the coast .We didn’t .

It’s based on that experience a few years later when changing boats to the Itama , no radar arch , no radar I actually in a man maths way saw that as positive .An easy compromise,certainly no red line - must have radar !

A - not really needed as used once in anger in 9 y.
B - drop out of the upgrade hamster spinning wheel which PeteM ,s now running in .

Night passage.
You have to play the cards you are dealt with .
With no radar .
We just go slow on the very rare occasions we are out at night ,but it’s a self determined thing being able to cruise @30 knots ( in seas that defeat others into slower speeds ) means in the season there’s plenty of daylight to cover a lot of ground so the need for a radar if there ever was one has its just dropped out .
I don,t miss it in the Med .

So it’s down to how you use your boat and that’s each to there own .

Reminds me of the other day I brake tested a 70 ,s forty year old Ferrari , one of the front wheels locked up .Remember that sound / smell ?
So I just backed off the peddle pressure to regain the “ feel “ and steering .
Whoops forgot no ABS .
But then so what the earth did not open up and swallow me up .
Nor is the sea if you don,t have radar in the summer in the Med .
 
I'm boating in the south of Spain (usually between Marbella and Gibraltar) and we do get the occasional fog overday due to sudden changes in temperature. Last time I encountered it was in August. Fog came up in about 15 minutes (weather forecast was clear for the day), reducing visibility to close to zero. Navigating using audio signals (I have no radar) and plotter. Quite disturbing....
 
Coustea1 said:
I'm boating in the south of Spain (usually between Marbella and Gibraltar) and we do get the occasional fog overday due to sudden changes in temperature. Last time I encountered it was in August. Fog came up in about 15 minutes (weather forecast was clear for the day), reducing visibility to close to zero. Navigating using audio signals (I have no radar) and plotter. Quite disturbing....
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Is that local fog caused by the convergence of the Atlantic and Med I wonder?
 
There is occasional fog in the Straits of Gibraltar and on the coast up to Malaga. That is distinctly hairy without radar.
 
petem said:
So my question is, do you ever get un-forecasted fog in the Med?
Click to expand...
Short answer yes, but aside from the most cold winter months when you are unlikely to be out there, it's very rare.
I mean, fog on the sea as such, regardless of whether predicted or not.
I came across it only twice in many years, one in Croatia and one in Sardinia.

But when it comes to radar usefulness, there's more than fog to consider, night being the other most obvious occurrence (though visibility can indeed be good, at night) and heavy rain being the other.
Now, of course there's no such thing as an unpredicted night (:D), but unpredicted heavy rain can and does happen.
And don't be mistaken: that can be even worse than fog, because on top of possibly creating ZERO visibility, tuning and reading the radar properly becomes much more tricky.
In this respect, modern digital radars do have an edge over your analogue system, which btw is the same as mine.
That said, imho the cost of upgrading to a digital radar is nowhere near worth it, if you already have a decent and fully functional analogue one.
Again imho, the main problem with your setup is the 70 screen, whose size is a PITA when watching a radar screen.
Well, it is also when used as a plotter TBH, but as a radar it's even worse.
In your boots, unless impossible for space reasons, I'd rather replace the 70 with an 80.
You can find them used at reasonable prices, usually sold from installers who replaced the whole system to boaters who typically change also their phones every time the guys in Cupertino come out with something more expensive... :rolleyes:
 
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