It finally happened to me..FOG AT NIGHT

My creepiest fog experience was years ago up by Echo Bay. I was going through some small islets and got socked in. No RADAR, no LORAN, just dead reckoning going dead slow. I calculated that after a short crossing I should next see shoreline appearing on port. The fog got dark to starboard and suddenly trees appeared. No way was that possible. I had the scariest sense of vertigo ever. I sat in 20 feet of water and tried to figure out where I was. Nothing made any sense. It turned out that I had come to the shoreline to port, but into a tiny little harbor where the trees to starboard appeared first.

My preference in fog is still to sit in 20 feet of water and wait it out. I'm not sure that having RADAR would change that.

Mark
 
Some years ago, during a C-Brat get together at Sequim, we, the group, took a small cruise to a neighboring village. On the way back we hit a dense fog bank. Everybody was using whatever they had.their radar, gps track, and horns. Over the radio comes a call, "hey guys, I'm lost in the fog". Our boats answer, "do you have gps or radar?" "No, but I have a whistle". Somebody directs him to blow it as loud as he can. We all kept quiet and the lost boat was located and guided to safety.
 
When sailing from Santa Cruz Island back to Long Beach, about 15 miles out of Ventura, we came upon a 15 foot skiff , motoring slowly in the fog. They asked us where Ventura harbor was. I gave them a compass bearing. "No, we don't have a compass--just point the way." We did--I guess they must have made it!.
 
So here is my Fog story and how I got my wife to demand that we spend $3000 on electronic.

First trip to the Sj's in our own boat. 19ft starcraft with a 76 70hp outboard ,a depth finder, and hand held gps with no mapping. We book a room at the Lopez Islander a month in advance ( Yes this is a clear example of the " got to get there " that I am always talking about.) and show up to Washington park ramp to rain and fog. We asked several boats coming in how bad was the fog and got several different answers from Ok to bad. We see it was clearing, from where we were standing, so we headed out. About half way across Rosario strait we could not see a thing. This puts us in the shipping lane . We did not know what was in front of us, which way we were really headed but west ( currents were new to me at the time) , What was around us or where we wanted to go. That is when another boat went by and I decided that I needed to go where he was going where ever that was because his boat was bigger and he had a fancy GPS mapping thingy on his dash. He did NOT have radar. But at least he knew where he was. All that had to be seen and decided in 3 seconds or he was going to be gone on the fog too. Throttle up and tuck in tight to his ass like I was in heat. The first thing that I saw as we slowed and speed up depending on the fog thickness that I recognized was the Red light at Fauntleroy Pt on Decator. That was the first thing I saw other then the boat I was following and fog.

During the trip we heard the ferry go by at 20 knots but never saw it. It was with in 100yrds or less of us twice. We stopped and got out of the way for several other big cruiser in the fog. The next thing we could see was upright head . Thats when the fog lifted and we could go our own way to the resort. That means we traveled about 20 miles in the fog with no idea where we were.

What did we learn? That we should not have gone at all. We missed the first chance to be safe and not go until and if the weather cleared. Why did we not make that discussion? Because I had paid in advance for a room in a resort that was hard for me to afford at the time and , say it with me. "WE HAD TO GET THERE". We also made the discussion to BUY radar for the next boat at the least and a MFD with mapping and radar over lay at best.

That day on the water was a complete fail even thought we made it. We failed to make the right choose to not go. We failed to wait for better weather and we failed to use the tools we did have, compass and charts, correctly and from the start. Trying to figure out where you are in the fog with a compass and chart is a lost cause once you are in the fog. We should have set a course from the ramp to the Fauntleroy light BEFORE we set out.

I only post this for one reason, other then its funny if you live. I do get asked about the islands and where to go and how to do things because people see me on the site in the islands all the time. What I have learned from others is important but what we learn by failing is far more important. I could tell this story as a "I'm so good or lucky that I got away with it and its not that big of deal having radar" but that is the story that assholes tell ( no commits please) . I failed that day and put my wife at risk. If I can not learn or educate with that failure then I have learned nothing.

Get the radar or dont but learn to make the right choices for go, no go first.
 
Not all fog experiences are bad. One of the most amazing whale watch trips I had was in fog. I left from Friday Harbor with a private charter - a group of extreme sports athletes. They had been in the San Juans for a week and this was their last shot at getting out on a whale watch.

We departed in a light fog with decreasing visibility as we went south through Cattle Pass. One of our other boats told me they had "a hole, with a quarter mile visibility and whales." They were departing, and gave me lat/lon. By the time I got to the coordinates, the fog was solid. No other boats on radar. I turned off the engine so we could listen... then, a blow of exhilation and with about 50 feet of visiblity, we could see the outline of Orcas surfacing. They surfaced all around the boat. It was magical.

On the ride back to Friday Harbor, going about 5 to 6 knots, I had to stop twice because whales popped up close enough to see. The guests weren't on a schedule and we all enjoyed the experience. Getting just north of Cattle Pass, the fog lifted and we ran that last bit of the trip with blue sky.

Pretty special trip.
 
dotnmarty":2yu6vl1u said:
"No, but I have a whistle".
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Such a memorable day.

And, I've gotten so much mileage out of that response...it's provided over 10 years of ribbing at the expense of he who uttered it. Not gonna name him.

Meowwwwwww...
 
Oh, man, Marty was doing so well and my plan was to quietly hide from the fresh ridicule. For a while I was just so impressed with Marty's restraint. Almost PM'd him, too. But then, enter Da Nerd, and all discretion goes to hell. Goodness, that poor fellow you're talking about--forgot his name--learned his lesson almost 15 years ago.
:clock
 
My C-Dory now has a new mum & dad, but once a Brat, always a Brat. When I had Nomad, I was a firm believer in keeping it simple (and saving money). I never had radar, auto-helm, or shore power. Now on my new boat I have all three and luv 'em. If you are on a budget, pick out one to install first that is more likely to save your life and the boat. It's a no-brainer.

Harvey, my boat is the only Troll I have come across with a custom installed high radar arch for mounting the radar.

Martin.
Gypsy Rose, Camano Troll 31.
 
I really enjoyed starcrafttom's fog story. Tom's one of the good ones.....he learned from his experience and he's a better captain for it (there are other types of folks....like the types who learn little because they focus on blaming others or even the elements :wink: ).

However, I'm not sure I buy his implied conclusion that one should have radar. I'm lucky, my first power boat is Tosca, and she came with radar (and every thing else :)). So I've been spoiled. I've crossed Rosario in thick fog and felt completely safe and comfortable with all that gear creating my own little virtual visibility bubble.

OTOH, in my distant past, I was a 20 year sailor and racer on SF Bay, and on the ocean outside the Golden Gate. Didn't have all these goodies then..... not even a hand-held GPS since they didn't exist back then (or cell phones either for that matter). Navigation was all by charts, compass, and lines of position taken with a hand-held bearing compass. Normally, I took Tom's first advice.....we simply didn't go, but if it happened that the fog came in, I never felt in true risk. However, we always took Tom's second advice; that is, we always knew our position, and had a compass course laid out to our next relatively nearby destination (usually a buoy of some sort). If the fog arrived, we just got more careful about staying on course and compensating for current drift and such. We would have our course to our next destination plotted before we arrived at the buoy (it's very cool to see them pop out of the abyss). We also had ears (work better on a sailboat!).

So with chart plotter and GPS and some careful dead reckoning, I think I'd feel OK without radar going slow and listening hard. OTOH, I sure do love my radar..............hahahahahahaha!!!
 
"According to Rule 7b of the Colregs, vessels equipped with an operational
radar set are obligated to use it properly, 'including long-range scanning to
obtain early warning of risk of collision and radar plotting or equivalent
systematic observation of detected objects.' "

"Proper use" means more than putting the thing on "auto", fine tuning it for
existing sea conditions or mounting it where it won't fry your privates.

I wondered exactly what that meant so I took an Ocean Navigator course and
found out. It involves using a "maneuvering board and plotting sheet*" which
probably most recreational boaters using radar know nothing about. Without it
filled out in poor visibility and if a collision actually occurs, you may find yourself
on very thin ice legally. Found out it is not that difficult to do and could beat
investing in more stuff like AIS, FLIR, ARPA and MARPA devices.

The basics are here
* http://www.oceannavigator.com/January-F ... -plotting/

Aye.
 
Foggy,

I can't image a boat of our size, which can stop and do 90° turns in a boat length, even considering doing radar plotting. This is for huge ocean going vessels who need to know many minutes in advance whether or not they are on a collision course.

I suspect most radar on our boats support MARPA....I know mine does. MARPA is sort of an automated radar plot. I also suspect most have not bothered to learn to use MARPA. I have just as an interesting technical exercise. I rarely use it.....altho I have done so to track freighters while I am in shipping lanes. I suspect I might use MARPA for any near vessel if I were in thick fog.

P.S. The old adage "Constant bearing means collision" is also VERY useful with boats of our size. That simple technique is more or less radar plotting and/or MARPA inside your brain. But, of course, it only works if you have visibility.
 
smckean (Tosca)-I like what you said but you forgot one thing that to me does make radar in this area a must. " the other asshole" I can not tell you how many times I have seen a target on radar going 20 to 30 or more mph thru the fog. I see them and I stop and watch them go by at speed with their heads down starting in to a gps map WITHOUT RADAR. If I was in front of them they would never had seen me until they where half way thru my cabin. They are not looking up because the fog is to thick to see anything but because they have GPS MAPPING they think they came still go half speed and be ok. Only problem is that full speed is 45 to 50 so slow to them is 20. I have had it happen about twice a season for the past ten years. I would prefer they did not sell Mapping GPS with out radar. You dont need it and now that I have learned a few things
I could get by with out it. Its that other guy that worries me and I want to see him coming.

James- yes we have had some great fishing and sights in the fog. Its not all bad , if you know what is out there.
 
Foggy,
......or equivalent systematic observation of detected objects
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This is part of the rule too. This is what I'm suggesting rather than manually drawing lines on a piece of paper. Also, note the phrase:, "vessels equipped with an operational radar set are obligated to use it properly" in the rule; so if you don't have radar, you are not obligated to drawing those lines on paper or anything else in this rule.

starcrafttom":350fc4u1 said:
I would prefer they did not sell Mapping GPS with out radar.
Click to expand...
....and here I had you pegged as a libertarian.......hahahahaha
 
smckean (Tosca)":1zrqwpax said:
Foggy,
......or equivalent systematic observation of detected objects
Click to expand...
This is part of the rule too. This is what I'm suggesting rather than manually drawing lines on a piece of paper. Also, note the phrase:, "vessels equipped with an operational radar set are obligated to use it properly" in the rule; so if you don't have radar, you are not obligated to drawing those lines on paper or anything else in this rule.

starcrafttom":1zrqwpax said:
I would prefer they did not sell Mapping GPS with out radar.
Click to expand...
SNIP
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Many on this site are very cost conscious; mpg/fuel use.
That's why I mentioned a plotting board "is not that difficult to do and
could beat investing in more (relative large dollar) stuff like AIS, FLIR,
ARPA and MARPA devices."

Aye.
 
....could beat investing in more (relative large dollar) stuff like AIS, FLIR, ARPA and MARPA devices.
Click to expand...

I'm not trying to be argumentative, rather I'm just trying to get the "facts" straight.

As I see it (maybe I'm wrong), the rule only applies to folks with radar. Without radar, the skipper only needs be vilgilant and has no obligation under this rule. If, however, you do have radar, then you have some obligations. What I'm saying is that MARPA is a much easier and faster way to meet that obligation than with pen and paper. MARPA is a software thing and does not require special equipment; the cost is only whatever the radar manufacturer decides to charge for that software feature.....it's software you have to buy anyway to have radar in the first place. I haven't checked pricing or availability, but my understanding is that there is no extra cost for this feature, it simply comes with your chart plotter unit. As far as I know, all, or nearly all, radar units come with MARPA. The issue is not cost, but familiarity.

P.S. Years ago I was the prime navigator on several ocean going sailboats. I have done trips of several days to several weeks, out on the open ocean, well out of sight of land. I loved navigation and found it interesting to navigate by sextant, watch, and tables (no one I sailed with back then had any electronic navigation equipment as we do today). I was quite good at this, and could not only do noon sights (for latitude), but I was also able to do twilight sights on multiple stars to find our immediate position (no dead reckoning estimation needed). All this required many hours of plotting lines of position, and course bearings on pieces of paper. So I am very familiar with what it takes to do such a thing. With that experience as a background, and IMHO, if you are alone, or don't have at least a helmsman with their eyes/ears peeled, and a second person who is knowledgeable to do the plotting down below, I have my doubts that attempting to hand plot positions and lines of intersection to various blips you see on your radar screen would be a safe thing to do. (Having said that, of course, alone or not, one better have a course to follow to a known destination with things like current set taken into consideration.)
 
OK, Yes, if you have Radar from at least the last 10 years, then it very most likely has MARPA and yes, MARPA is and can be used as an adjuct for collision avoidance. When I first got SleepyC it was my first boat with radar. That was cool. Learning to use it was fun, a bit of a learning curve for sure, but after a while it was pretty natural.

Ferritting out the extra features, learning to tune it and taking full advantage of the features was the prime reason for many of those early trips.

MARPA was great, because I could use that to track other vessels and eithr get close, or stay away, depending on the circomstance. On my system, MARPA is not a one or two button function. (Maybe it is now on the newer units.) When I was doing it frequently, I could get the first plot in about 30 -40 seconds, and the you need to wait......until you have several minutes of passage, to do a second plot. That would then give you the course, approximate speed, and you can find out if you are in danger of collision.

That works, Yes. And for smaller vessels it may be the only way, BUT, those same small vessels are much less likely to maintain a speed or heading, SO, the reliability factor falls off some.

THEN I learned about AIS. In a w button push I have everything i need to know to maintain collision avoidance, PLUS (instead of just a spot on a screen), i know CPA "Closest Point of Approach", TCPA "Time to Closest Point of Approach", the size of the vessel, the speed, the course heading, the MMSI, and the vessel name. YES, all that in 2 button pushes, and it takes all of 5 seconds.

Is, AIS necessary, or Radar? No, not really, but I would say it depends on where you boat. Where I boat, I frequently cross some of the busiest shipping lanes in the country with freighters from 4-500 feet up to 1200 feet, and they are running at up to 25 knots. We have the busiest ferry service in yhe world in Washington state. They cruise at 18 to 25 knots, day, night, and weather whatever. All of those vessels are AIS equipped, and there are many smaller boats that are using AIS now, (broadcasting on a Class B device), which make all of these AIS triangles on my plotter, and in 5 seconds or less, I can have all of that info.

And Yes, I can do MARPA plots on those same vessels, but in the time it takes, I could be run over by a 1000 foot tanker doing 20 knots and the wouldn't even feel the bump. Sorry, but I am using the AIS as a primary device, and very rarely am I doing MARPA any more.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon
 
Philosophically I agree with smckean that it is highly impractical to use a plotting board on a C Dory, and for the reasons he stated. I also have many tens of thousands of miles as skipper of my vessels crossing oceans, and used basic non electronic navigation, as well as being trained in the use of radar plotting.

But as to MARPA, I'll quote from a Panbo article of Dec. 3, 2015
" When a yachtsman says that MARPA is critical to safe navigation, I tend to wonder if they've been overly influenced by the commercial world where radar beam widths are much narrower and pulses much shorter."
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Although this refers to a Navco unit--in many ways it refers to all small boat radars, and their ability. If you want the whole story, read it, the comments, and then various articles dealing with MARPA, the heading sensors etc.

I have the Garmin 24XHD radar, with a 1040xs--the combination supports MARPA --but to really get it to work, you need the extra heading sensor, with a second 10hz GPS receiver and a 9 axis sensor--"gyro rated" compass. (over $700). Retail price of all of this today is close to $4,000, including the cables and set up for the MNEA 2000 backbone. I am doing overlay at times--and a simulated MARPA without the special heading--but in reality I am only manually tracing one object. If I really want accurate information and I am lucky, I can use AIS do the projection in my head or maybe have to go back to a plotting board.. I lugged a pad of radar plotting sheets all over half of the World, but even in the stability of a 62 footer, with a real chart table, and one of the best small boat radars available in mid 1980's, things just happen too fast even at 6 knots with many targets to plot the objects! For an extreme example--we had over a dozen fishing boats, criss crossing pulling nets at one time--dense fog middle of the night within a 2 mile range You cannot plot that in real time.

The reality is that the C Dory is not a platform where you can manually even plot one vessel and still keep eyes on the radar, chart plotter (or overlay), depth sounder and keep a lookout--or respond to the person who is keeping a lookout, steer etc...

As to radar plotting--I do it in my head. Basically constant bearing is danger, just like visual. How accurate is your radar discrimination? Are there two boats at 5 miles or one? Without AIS, can you rapidly calculate how fast that boat is moving ( without MARPA)? Some of the latest digital radars are better. But as I understand today's technology, we are not quite there yet, without the very accurate heading sensor. (Some say that they can do it with the $200 point one), I have not tried that--and don't spend that much time in busy shipping lanes with fog--if I was in some areas--like Boston, I would have all of the latest equipment--if I wanted to run in those conditions. Don't forget one of those ferry's hit a breakwater not too long ago--what chance does a C Dory have?

A quote from a professional mariner on Cruising Anarchy

MARPA can give you the general information that can be used to determine those targets that aren't really a threat and to identify those that may be a threat...... However, anyone who uses electronics to plot a technically correct close quarters route is foolish. There is a reason that my Night Orders book required a minimum CPA of 2 or 3 miles (at sea) and why other margins were usually considered in terms of miles or maybe half miles. You must keep a margin of safety far greater than what the decimal points tell you. The consequences of error are too big to consider.

A frequent failing of the average pleasure boater is that he thinks in terms of his own relative idea of close. To him a quarter mile is 1200 feet or twenty to thirty times his own boat length and between yachts that's a huge separation. But get to commercial shipping and it's not even half of their turning circle.

Use your AIDs to navigation but recognize their limitations. MARPA is just another aid like your compass for instance. Do you steer to the nearest degree or to the nearest 5, 10 or even 20 degrees?
Click to expand...

How many C Dory's really use MARPA?
 
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