Fog Courtesy? & Cautions

[Tim R.]

The last weekend in July my wife and I spent a beautiful Saturday anchored in Quissett Harbor (Falmouth). I had a choice of heading home that evening or the next morning. She had a wedding shower @ 10:00am about an hours drive from our boatyard. The forecast was for great weather both days so I convinced her to stay the night have dinner in Woods Hole and head out at 6:00am. I got up @ 5:30 and made coffee to a thick fog. I’m not sure what the visibility was but it scared me.
I let her sleep until 7:30 at which time she was upset and worried about being late for the shower. I am a new sailor and this was my first experience in fog. I do have a chartplotter, radar and a radar reflector so I guess I was prepared . We headed out and the only thing I saw was another sailboat in the 7 mile trek home. I was able to pick him up on the radar before ever seeing him:dance:. What scared me the most was crossing the shipping lanes heading towards the Cape Cod Canal. There wasn’t much for wind so we had to power the whole way. I was about a mile from home when the skies grew very dark (on top of the fog). Within a minute they opened up and rained like I’ve never seen before. I couldn't see anything and my radar just turned purple with interference. Then came the thunder and lightening. Can’t tell you how helpless I felt traveling at 6 knots. I had three small runabouts following me in. I just remember thinking I wouldn’t want to be them. They had no idea where they where! Reading this post, I’m proud to say I did have my running lights on. I was monitoring channel 16 and had my horn next to me the whole time. I never used it nor did I hear anyone else using one. When I pulled up to our mooring I felt a feeling of accomplishment.Then I read the post on the Bismarck Dinius story and feel like no matter how prepared and cautious you are you just never know.


Bob

Glad you made it home safely Bob. You need to learn to use your radar better though. It should have a rain clutter setting that would have fixed the purple screen. I randomly use my radar in clear weather to see how things show up.

As far as Dinius is concerned, if he had radar on his boat and it was not switched on, the DA would have even more evidence against him.

 

[Gail R]

Sunday the fog was not too bad, but at times did close down thick.

Yup, depended on where you were. It was nice coming in past the Little Mark Island monument and seeing it open up a little. "I can see for mile!" I sez to the captian.

 

[BobM]

Don't need fog...

...I watched a nitwit on a 20 foot powerboat mow down a green can on a perfect sunlit day with two other people on board. He was following a row of them down the channel for crying out loud and hit the last one. Then he went for the potential Darwin award by leaning far out over the bow so he could check for damage. I had visions of him going over and being chopped up by his own engine.

 

[Bob J.]

As with so many things in life, if you're lucky, you're born with common sense.
I'm sure most of the people that zip around in the fog can be compared to the fools that fly down the highway at 60 when there's snow on the road. No amount of education or legislation will compensate for the lack of common sense.

If you have radar on your boat, use it every time you go out so you get use to it & know what you're looking at. We got to the point on our sport fishing boats using radar that that we could pick out the lobster bouys.

Here's a good common sense one:
Several years ago we're out fishing Plum Island Sound in a thick fog when the sound of a small boat approaches us, 16' outboard, dad & his 2 kids, which way is land? It's that way, they didn't even have a compass. 10 minutes later here they come again after doing the big circle. We pulled the lines in & had them follow us to the river.

Bob

 

[newly anonymous]

the logic behind running radar in clear weather

I see people running the radar arrays on motor boats here all the time in perfectly clear weather, never really made any sense to me, maybe to track boats instead of looking around? I usually just make fun of them...

on more modern boats equipped with collision avoidance systems, the radar not only gives you a bearing on a target, but its course and speed relative to your vessel. My system calculates a target's closest point of approach and the time until that point. While these calculations could be done with a hand-bearing compass and a stopwatch, the radar continuously updates the plots and is generally accurate within about ten seconds. Additionally, the radar will automatically warn the helm station of dangerous targets where there is a risk of collision. Running a radar thus is akin to having an additional crew member standing watch, one who never becomes distracted from the task at hand, and one who never forgets to turn around and watch for overtaking vessels.

Next time you're making fun of those fellows running radar in clear daylight, realize that many of them have a better idea of your present course and speed than you do.

A nifty little hint for those of you who race: you can use your radar's collision avoidance system to tell you exactly when you'll hit the start line at your current course and speed. You can also use it to track a competitor's course and speed way over on the other side of the course. You no longer have to wonder whether the folks who took a flyer over to the other side actually found better wind over there. The radar can verify whether they did or not.

The long and short of it is that radars are no longer just for limited visibility.

 

[windward54]

And one more reason to run radar during the day is to get better at reading the screen. Practice does make perfect. It is a lot easier to line things up when you can see the targets and how they paint onto the screen when it is clear. That way, you are a lot more comfortable when the fog rolls in, or night falls.

Of course, watching those powerboaters run radar while tied up at a mooring and are just recharging batteries, still fine to make fun of them!