Ex-USCG comments re: radar, EPIRB/PLB, ditch bag, autopilot

[Doryman]

This is from the Hewescraft list (I used to own one, great boat, but the Tom Cat is better suited to cruising) and thought this message from an ex-Coastie might be of interest to all and sundry...

Radar- The visible horizon from 1' above sea level is 8 nautical miles. (2000yds =1 NM) So, that means a 2kw radar (the cheapest) witha 24 NM range is just fine. My radar is about 7'-8' above sea level. I may have slightly better disatance, but who really cares.... The Radar option is as Steve said, an excellent safety device. I will never own a sea going boat without one. You match up the video that the Radar paints over the projected images the GPS says are there, you will feel very confident as to your exact position in the dark--when crossing the bar or navigating a channel where you can hear other boats or bouys! The level of confidence that the two provide is nothing less than phenominal! "Chart overlay" is what that is called. My best example is Bouy 10 fishing. 30-40 yrd visibility and safely navigating at 10-12mph. You can see everything. Even wood boats. Now, if there was a log floating....your screwed. That same day I was assisting in locating a boat that was taking on water and had Mayday'd the USCG. If you were in that boat in pea soup and out of 25 boats in the area, only the CG with Radar could find you, that is NOT a comforting feeling...anyway, another Radar equipped boat 2 miles away found the boat before the CG could be there, maybe 20 minutes. Believe me, that would be the longest 20 minutes of your life! I like Radar. For $800 bucks, it's priceless.

I went through a seminar that spoke to specifics with PLB's & EPIRBS. PLB's are like EPIRBS except can be used anywhere. Unlike an EPIRB that is registered to a single boat. Technology is almost the same. Some interesting stats....in the Pacific Northwest, ORE,WA, Alaska--the overall time of capture of a signal from PLB/EPIRB is under 4 minutes. That means they recieve your signal fast! Also, provided there is a GPS built into your device, a verified phone number that can be called answered by someone that corroberates your "float plan", they have a helo launched within an hour and usually rescued in 4h hours or less! The fast reponce is due to the vast amount of SAR (Search and Rescue) stations on the West coast. Here are the big things I learned at that meeting.

1. PLBs are the way to go IF YOU HAVE TIME TO ACTIVATE. They are not automatically activated like most EPIRBS.

2. If you go on vacation--mountains, desert drive, BOATING trip in ocean, you can ALWAYS be covered.

3. PLB's allow instant updates as to your intentions via a website on NOAA maybe the morning before you go.... i.e. "on a 5/10-11-12/07 I will be Halibut fishing on my boat".... "I am hiking the Oregon Cascades on the folowing dates....."

When we spoke about Mustang suits, Gumby suits, etc. It came down to this. Whatever you can quickly put on will not hurt while trying to survive VERY cold waters. The Gumby types are the best (dry suits) but kinda hard to put on. I chose a Mustang suit, (water is trapped inside and body warms the water and creates some insulation) the manufactorer says at 50* water exposure is lengthened from 1 hour to 10 hours. That should do for me.....

Recoverable floatation is what Steve was referring to. The USCG mandates all boats under 20' MUST HAVE IT. Hewecraft, to their credit, has decided to put it in all their boats, reguardless of it's length. Probably a result of their "Family Boating Philosophy". I too was very impressed with that fact. THAT is why I chose a PLB. Because a boat with recoverable floatation probably won't sink the 6'-8' depth required for an automatically triggered EPIRB to float out of a auto-release holder. Can you imagine that? No signal sent and now it's probably too difficult to get to? Forget that, I feel I can activate my PLB, call in a MAYDAY, throw on a suit in 15 seconds, then grab my ditch bag and go. Hopefully I will never have to.

Ditch bag contents so far...
1. Garmin 76 handheld GPS
2. PLB (internal GPS)
3. 4 --16' break then glow sticks 8hrs glowtime
4. self deploying orange ribbon that is a a 100yds long and can be seen for 1mile from a Helo.
5. box of energy bars
6. VHF handheld radio

Autopilot, I added the auto pilot to my kicker motor. Not my 225. The TR1 is scarey good. You can not humanly possiblly steer as straight as the TR1. Period. An aircraft engineer developed it. Not a marine guy! The system was adapted to marine AFTER it was developed. I really enjoy trolling by myself. Point the boat and it steers straight. Period.

As far as other units from other manufactorers, well, word of mouth means alot to me and that's what I went with. It was spendy though.... Main motor autopilot, I would'nt guess who would be the best there. I would expect the TR1 Gladiator. But, man, that's alot of money. $3500! I would probably go with a new Raymarine S1000 for that. (they do not reccommend that autopilot for people that troll less than 3mph) But, the price is sure hard to beat at $899....... The kicker has to work harder in my opinion. Same heavy boat moving MUCH slower. More physical motor articulation...(back and forth course adjustments) to keep a straight line. So that's why I went with the TR1 Gold for my 15hp kicker. Hopefully that covers some questions...

(Warren here -- I had a TR1 Gold on my Hewescraft and it was awesome.)

[thataway]

I am going to have to disagree with your friend about radar range. A radar one foot above the water surface to a reflective target 1 foot above the water surface is 2 miles. The Radar horizon is one mile for the radar at 1 foot off the water. You have to make the tagret 25 feet off the water to have a "range" of 8 miles.

Two boats with radar off the water 8 feet and another boat with reflector 8 feet off the water will see each other at about 8 miles--the radar horizon for each of these boats is four miles.

Agree that 2kw--even 1.5 Kw is fine--the question si more resolution. For the majority of time, the radar will be at 3 miles--so 16 miles is plenty of range--and most small boats will not be visiable at 16 miles.

Agree with the PLB--and we carry two--one for each of us--these are with us not only in the boat, but also when we drive across country. I am aware of SAR response in 5 minutes to the phone and launch of SAR in 20 minutes or less. The response time depends on the satellite pick up--and then relay of the information to the SAR center and contact to the local center. ThePLB needs to be GPS enabled. This cuts the search area to 1 sq mile vs are area of 10 miles square.


Drinking water is essential for survival--so that needs to be near the survival kit. Also a knife needs to be in the survival kit. A strobe light is far more visiable than the glow stick--we each carry strobe flash light combos, with plenty of AA batteries, as well as two waterproof VHF radios.

For daytime spotting I like the sea dye--I don't know the difference between the dye and a ribbon visability--but the dye is well proven and can be seen from high altitude aircraft.

Another interesting developement is that Garmin purchased Nautamatic Marine Systems (the makers of the TR 1 and Gladiator Autopilots) on March 29th. There is not much in the "boating" community about this acquisition--but it puts Garmin into the full line marine electronics with an excellent Autopilot. I don't know if the TR 1 will not be intergrated exclusively with Garmin or if it will still be available for interface with other GPS and chart plotters. Just a part of the consolidation in the marine field: --such as Lowwrance, Simrad, Sitex combined purchase and Navico purchase of Northstar and Navman...should lead to interesting compteition to RayMarine.

Good safety thoughts.

[tpbrady]

Bob,

I generally use a range of 1.5 miles on my radar for practice in simulated periods of low visibility. The strange thing is I have found the radar to be an excellent fog repellant. I have yet to encounter a need for the radar operationally in more than a year. In periods of limited visibility, the smallest target I need to see is a sea kayak. The radar cross section on them is quite small. I have seen them at a 1/4 mile, but it was an intermittent return and I almost think it was the paddles acting as a reflector. I need to do some more testing, but picking up an object made of plastic or fiberglass with a limited amount of metal in it is a challenge for most radars.

I plan to do some testing on Memorial Day weekend since we have a group of us going kayaking and I can work it in controlled conditions. Once I collect some data, I may recommend to some of the outfits that rent kayaks Prince William Sound, they equip their parties with some type of radar reflector. It wouldn't pay to get run over by the and Alaska State Ferry.

Tom

[AstoriaDave]

Tom, the latest issue of Sea Kayaker details some testing of various radar reflectors on sea kayaks. The bad news is that nothing works very well; the good news is that a "hat" of aluminum foil (or, metallized Mylar) with "flaps" on it was the best performer: easy to store, butgoofy as hell to look at!

As might be expected, sea state was the biggest bugaboo: in heavy swell/seas, surface return clutter made it mandatory that the radar watch be "looking" for sea-kayak-like returns, almost a full-time job for one person.

As a long-time paddler, I'm going to use my VHF and lay on a Securite call when crossing ferry lanes in poor visibility. Don't want to be a grease spot on a ferry hull.

[Larry H]

Dave,

Yes, don't be a 'stealth kayaker'!! I have come across several kayaks in mid channel that have dark blue or black hulls and the paddler is wearing dark colors. What are they thinking? They don't show up visually any better than a wet log.

From a boaters point of view, kayaks that operate in boating areas or cross busy channels should be bright yellow or green and the paddler would wear a bright orange life jacket and bright green hat. Also the paddles should have orange or green blades.

Sometimes the only clue to the presence of a kayak is the sun flash off the wet paddle blades.

Kayakers, avoid becoming a 'grease spot' on someones hull!!

[AstoriaDave]

[Sawdust]

Dave,
You are SO right. The little paddle folks give me huge adrenalin shots when visibility is zero and there is any chop. The alarm system on some systems helps, but not always. Up here, where it’s always raining or pea soup when/where I want to fish, radar power IS important. My little 2 KW just isn’t enough – on the 85’ Burger my radar antenna looked like the open array on a ferry boat. If the paddles were moving on the small boat I could see the pulses on the big unit. If I’m staring at the tube with 2 KW (usually Furuno, Raynav or Simrad) in a critical area -- Deception Pass for instance -- and running on auto pilot, I can see the targets and maneuver to avoid. Any reflector will help because on the big guys the radar watch is usually drinking coffee or fooling with Steve Job’s pet toy, with a glance now and then at the radar. (BTDT of course)
Dusty

[El and Bill]

Yep -- paddle flash is critical! Thirty years ago, out on Lake Powell doing geology in January (nobody was on Powell in January then -- cold and snowy) -- I caught a flash on the horizon -- almost ignored it since it was a windy bright day and lots of flash from the water, and I hadn't seen another boat on the lake in over a week. Caught the flash a second time, from the corner of my eye -- could see nothing there, but, curious, I vectored over toward it anyway.

Sure enough -- an open aluminum skiff, four guys aboard, out of gas drifting toward a rocky island, waving their wet paddle over head. Didn't see the paddle until about a half-mile away but the flash went maybe five miles. Pulled them into Bull Frog marina, where they had launched. It was closed but they could load their boat at the ramp. It snowed a foot that night and I thought about what might have happened to them in light jackets and no survival gear, if I hadn't seen their paddle flash.

[Sea Wolf]

Since paddle flash is sometimes about all you get, I wonder if the return would be greater if the wooden paddles were wrapped with a layer of aluminum foil and glassed over?

I guess a regular radar reflector inside the hull would be too low to seen in chop?


Joe.

[El and Bill]

I've thought about it, Joe, since that experience on Powell. We carry a signal mirror in our survival bag -- one that puts a 'sun-cross' on your chest, and you center the center of the cross (in a small mirror on the back of the mirror) with the center of the cross through the mirror and align both on the object you wish to flash (a potential rescue boat, or airplane) and then you know you are flashing directly at your 'target.' Of course, with any mirror, you can see the reflection on a hand held arms length in front and then move the reflection 'flash' up to the object you wish to alert. Anyway, hard to explain, but we have carried a signal mirror in our survival bag since then -- of course, in the NW it probably wouldn't work most of the time for 6 months of the year and for all it only works when the sun is bright. A fire (bonfire, if necessary) works well at night (and the smoke, in day) -- we found some lost hunters (while working search and rescue) in Utah that way -- so matches in water-proof container are also in our survival kit.

[tpbrady]

Dave,

I carry my VHF with me whenever I'm in the kayak. Since I also have a boat, I know how hard it is to see a kayak in any kind of chop so visibility is everything. The good news with having a sea kayak on the roof of my boat, I don't have to cross large expanses of water. I just put it on the roof and change venues. I know I can paddle across a 3 mile channel but I don't see much reason to prove it. I find the fun is not the crossing but what is on the other side.

Thanks for the test info on reflectors. If it made sense and could be done easily, I would put one of the fiberglass marker things on my boat like you see on ATV's. A nice bright orange flag on it about 6 feet in the air. If it was aluminized it might even make a good radar reflector.

Tom

[Sea Wolf]

El and Bill-

Great ideas with the mirror set up! I always wondered how one could aim the mirror's "flash" return of the sun's light and be assured of hitting the target you're trying to signal.

Wonder if a small laser might also be a nice addition for somewhere like the PNW where sunlight is often in short supply? I don't think a signal mirror would work w/o bright sunlight.

The paddle thing I was suggesting was to glue down and coat over aluminum foil on the paddles to get a stronger reflected radar return, and not so much a flash of light. I was thinking that with the height of the chop or swells, a regular radar reflector carried down in the kayak would often be too low down to produce a reliable reflection, although it would return the signal well when on top of a swell or wave.

Too bad a mylar baloon filled with helium and coated with it's thin aluminum coating would be so akward and goofy looking tied to the kayak. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind looking a little goofy if it kept me from being run over by a ferry!



Joe.

[Dreamer]

We use a Solas reflective tape on our dinghy. It would work as well on a Kayak. A small strobe would be very effective on a kayak too. They're available at West Marine.

We have come across Native Americans practicing for their canoe journey in their wood canoes in all sorts of fog and bad weather.

[SeaSpray]

Lots of good info in this post. Most of the kayakers I run across have had training classes and do know about the problem of being seen. I also know that there are many kayakers that just get a boat and go. No thought to safety. Not really any different than any other boaters that don't have a clue.

There is a laser product called the Greatland Rescue Laser that can be used for signaling your position to other boats or if you are in trouble. It is currently on sale at West Marine. I would like to have one but even on sale it is $90.

When I kayak I almost always have a VHF, cell phone, flares, and other safety equipment. Since I am the smallest boat out there everyone else has the right of way! I also prefer to padle where most other boats can not go.

Steve