Hi all,

Written for another venue, but thought it might be of interest.

My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy

Training exercise: radar

Hi all,

Radar use is one of those maritime skills that really demand practice. Practice and drills for cruising boats are an important ingredient that keeps us safe: but they are often neglected, usually a bit of a pain to execute, take effort and none of us likes to think about the possibility of serious injury/death. So, taking action is easily put off for another day.

We found a way to get more skilled in radar navigation a bit of fun. This exercise is easiest if your radar display is down below (but not impossible otherwise) and takes 2 people: one person at the display who calls out course changes and a running commentary on the display returns (large return at bearing 030 at 2 nm; intermittent return at 1/4nm at 220 deg bearing and closing the distance). The other crew is at the helm following course suggestions and ensuring boat safety and giving feedback on what the radar is revealing. (Intermittent return is a wooden small fishing boat.)

We did this often on the trip from Block Island into a favorite anchorage in Little Narraganset Bay near Watch Hill (the Kitchen, so named as the hurricane of ’38 swept dozens of shore side large summer homes into the anchorage and for decades cruisers would get their anchor caught on a kitchen sink or a true ice-box and the like)). This route usually gave us some traffic, both recreational and commercial, and a moderately tricky entrance into the anchorage where the radar was used for land masses, low lying islands and ATONS (buoys, day marker poles etc., various kinds of aids to navigation).

This can also be quite amusing (and sobering) such when I was requested to come up to see a huge slab-sided freighter crossing our bow about 1/4 mile off which I had totally missed: taught me that I needed to regularly change the range. Also, that I really cared about the 4-6 nm range and would move from that range to check greater distance on a regular basis. 

My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy