Donald & all, I posted this once before but this seems a good time to do it again. About 15 years ago I went out for a week on a commercial fishing boat, more or less. The boat's owner was an elderly fellow who liked a dram now and again. Once he saw I could drive the boat, he pointed to the radar and said, "you might want to try that out, the switch is down there." That was the extent of my training. Trying it out in clear conditions, I saw how it could pick up the boats around us. I then watched as a moderately sized boat disappeared from radar while it was in plain sight. The boat had a jeep-style gas can on the deck, and as the boat turned, that or something else on the boat at first reflected the signal nicely, then disappeared. That showed me a serious limitation of radar. >From that point I drove us down the Straights of Juan De Fuca, into Neah Bay, and later 16 miles out into the Pacific several times. (My previous motorboat experience was my dad letting me take the wheel of a 15 footer a couple of times). Once we returned in fog so thick that I had difficulty seeing the bow. A faint blip on the radar alerted me to something ahead and the depth meter showed the water suddenly down to 4 feet below the keel. There are two very deadly rocks at the mouth of the Straight which I had to find my way between. Later, another faint blip came straight at us. I changed course slightly and radar showed the other boat less than 100 yards away as we passed. We never saw each other. If there had been a kayak or even a small motorboat out that day there would have been zero chance of avoiding it. Radar saved us from hitting another boat that day, but thinking back on that gives me the willies. Radar was also the only way that I found our way back into Neah Bay that day -- I could not have navigated with chart and compass in that fog and the Loran was broken (pre-GPS at that time). Oh, and where was the captain? He was giving mouth to mouth to another bottle of vodka every day for that week. So when you cross that shipping lane, or see that fishing boat coming your way, chances are the big fellow pointed at you has all the modern equipment and a very experienced crew with the best intentions. But just don't bet your life on it. (The other) Jerry. *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************Received on Tue Jun 27 2000 - 10:52:25 PDT
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