A group of us once paddled in heavy fog among islands on the coast of Maine. A Coast Guard boat loomed up from the mist and suggested we stay out of the channel. They said we were only barely detectable with their hotshot radar, and would likely be entirely undetectable by average marine radar systems on private yachts. We encountered this patrol in an area of dead flat calm water. We were not "obscured by waves". We were studying navigation at the time. I recently received a request for information about making kayaks detectable on radar. I don't have a useful response. On those occasions that we paddled in heavy fog (visibility 100 yards), we stayed in a tight group, listened for other boats, sounded horns upon hearing other boats, heard their horns in reply, and listened as they veared around us. We never saw them. We stayed out of boating channels except to cross, and crossed rapidly when we heard no traffic. We mostly avoided traffic in this way. Can anyone provide some useful advice or experience on making sea kayaks visible to radar when paddling in heavy fog ? Thanks, Chuck Sutherland e-mail: <skimmer_at_mail.enter.net> http://www.enter.net/~skimmer *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:33:04 PDT