Simrad HALO radar, pros & cons

[Ketch Siri]

I hope this is in the right forum...
...otherwise we just delete this.

Me and my wife are in the process of gearing up a Bruce Roberts 44 steel ketch for sailing off (plan to leave about 2020)... for as long as we have the health and wish to continue.
When it come to radar, I´m right now leaning to the Simrad Halo and like to find/hear some testimonials about what it can and maybe most important what it can´t do for a ocean sailor... but so far - I´ve found almost nothing.(except from the manufacturer)

So here´s a chance to be one of the first out with some useful testimonials about this interesting product.
If you like to share your experience/thoughts about it, we would love to hear it.

Thanks for your time, best regards.
Fair winds / Swede and Cia, Ketch Siri, Sweden

[Matt Johnson]

Doubt there will be many sailboats with this until you see a radome offered. Too hard to keep lines out of the open rotating 4' radar.

Matt

[Tortuga's Lie]

With a ketch rig, I am guessing that it is mounted on the mizzen where halyards are less likely to foul it?
Not too familiar with Simrad equipment, so can't help you there.

[Ketch Siri]

Originally Posted by Tortuga's Lie

With a ketch rig, I am guessing that it is mounted on the mizzen where halyards are less likely to foul it?
Not too familiar with Simrad equipment, so can't help you there.

Good guess
Yes, in case I go with the open antenna - it will be at the top of the mizzen...
...don´t want this to be a discussion about weight (-transfer), center of gravity and dynamic issues.

Just say, I like it to optimize a good (steady) view around me. Even in the troughs of the larger seas - to keep marpa functions up, and prepaire to take some compromizing to get there. Rig isn´t ordered yet, so I still have the choice to go up a size, or two, to accomplish the streight needed.

Please do post, even if you don´t have it as high as I intend to. This thread was ment to be a good reference for more people than us...

Thanks for input in the subject

[captmikem]

I built (and sailed) a ketch that had two open array radars on the mizzen. We just had bars built around them to keep lines off, worked pretty good.

M

[CarlF]

I rarely use radar anymore offshore. Big ships (the ones that give me nightmares) are using AIS. Non AIS users are small so they are hard to pick out from the radar clutter offshore except in flat calm. I usually see their lights before I see them on radar. There are exceptions such as fog where I'll keep the radar on but only for a three mile range.

I have a ketch and would never put up an open array. Just too risky. If you must, put on a cage. And I'd be even less likely to put that much weight and windage at the top of the mast.

On my mizzen mounted radar, I believe the mainmast confuses the radar computer. My MARPA is not reliable within 20 degrees of the bow.

The movement of the mast also makes my radar (and certainly Marpa) almost useless in a sea over 2 meters. I think all these fancy digital filtering systems on radars today are looking for a return to be in about the same place each rotation. Mine is 15ft up a mizzen mast and really swings around. I can't imagine it would work at all on top of my mizzen.

I don't have a leveler. I think that's part of my problem as performance is worse when healed.

MARPA performance is reportedly very different by brand. I'm told that Furuno continues to have by far the best MARPA. My 2001 Raytheon chartplotter had good MARPA but both the Raymarines and Garmins I've had since then have been pretty poor at holding a MARPA fix except in ideal conditions.

If I was putting new radar on today, I'd put a very small dome about 10ft up the mainmast (to be as stable as possible) or on a pole on the transom with a leveler. It would work fine out to the 5 mile radar range I care about with little windage.

And consider putting the savings into AIS A. The transmitter is much stronger so ships will see you far earlier. If you stick with B, hail some large ships on VHF to check your transmitting range. While I can see ships' AIS 50 miles away, they don't reliably see me until 5 miles.

More than 50 miles offshore, if my AIS shows a large ship with a CPA of less than five miles, I'll hail them on VHF to make sure they know I'm nearby. I almost always get an answer - presumably because the watch is pretty bored.

[Ketch Siri]

Originally Posted by captmikem

I built (and sailed) a ketch that had two open array radars on the mizzen. We just had bars built around them to keep lines off, worked pretty good.

Aahh...!!!
What a beautiful ship - - seeing such vessel makes me filled with joy !

CarlF:
Thanks for sharing.
Interesting how much distortion from the mast and spreaders, you have encounter. I´ve been wondering how much distortion a Halo will have, especially if it has the wider 4 or 6 ft array. My thought (maybe hope) was if the wider (still parallel beam) and of much lower energy (per sq inch) might have a less tendency of making false echoes at such circumstances?

The vertical angle of the lobe (main beam) is a limitation as the boat start to heal by the wind (and waves as well). I´ve been consider making a mount which I can choose to manually level (by hydraulic force) if/when there is need for it. The G-forces up there make me believe a self leveling construction will wear out way too fast (if you can make it work at all?).

I totally agree with you about your point of view on how to use the AIS - That´s why we already got a SAAB class A AIS and later the antenna will be all the way up on the masthead of the main (best cable and no shortcuts there). Another nice thing with the class A unit is that you can actually let other know of your status by different messages.

While I´m putting this message in.
Just thought I like to ad one more source on the Simrad Halo (hope this is OK with the rules here), as I like the way he explains tech things pretty easy to understand.
It´s a review made by Ben who to me seem to be very knowledgeable around electronic gadgets for boats. Here is a link:
Panbo: The Marine Electronics Hub: How Simrad Halo works, 12 radars in one!
Have a great one / S

[GafferMate]

Thank you for posting this topic. I am about to pull PILAR's masts and will probably have to discard the Furuno radar--old age and non-use for the past 16 years. It is mounted on the mizzen and worked fine there for the years we were cruising, possibly because we're gaff-rigged and the mast is short, more stability? Will be interested in hearing more on this topic. Thanks again for starting this thread.

[Seafari]

Originally Posted by Ketch Siri

I hope this is in the right forum...
...otherwise we just delete this.

Me and my wife are in the process of gearing up a Bruce Roberts 44 steel ketch for sailing off (plan to leave about 2020)... for as long as we have the health and wish to continue.
When it come to radar, I´m right now leaning to the Simrad Halo and like to find/hear some testimonials about what it can and maybe most important what it can´t do for a ocean sailor... but so far - I´ve found almost nothing.(except from the manufacturer)

So here´s a chance to be one of the first out with some useful testimonials about this interesting product.
If you like to share your experience/thoughts about it, we would love to hear it.

Thanks for your time, best regards.
Fair winds / Swede and Cia, Ketch Siri, Sweden

Hi Ketch Siri, you mention that you're in the process of gearing up your BR44 with planned departure date being 2020, approx 4 years from now. Are you refitting the vessel or will you be using it locally before heading off on a big adventure. The reason I ask is that I've seen so many folks start fitting out their yacht and they go for all the cool stuff first, like the mod cons of the electronics. By the time they head off on their sabbatical the electronics is rather dated. I have a friend who made that mistake and now that he's finally "finished" the refit he's looking to update his plotter/radar which has never really been used.

As for the radar it's self do you have a Simrad plotter to run the Halo radar on or will you be buying MFD as well?

[Ketch Siri]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Seafari & GafferMate.

I´ll be more than happy to answer other questions of our boat and why I prefer to go this way or that...
...but my intension with this thread was to get some more and different input on the Halo and it´s possibilities.
In order not to get out of track on the Halo/radar issue in this thread, I started a new thread (for those interested) about how we gear up our boat - where I think it belong:
Siri, BR 44 CC steel ketch - ready to leave 2020... - Cruisers & Sailing Forums

About MFD:
My intention is to use an interface/parts that make the best performance out of the product. I hope to be able to not be forced to run (in that case) Simrad MFD at all the places I like to have a screen of our position.

About short mizzen mast:
Yes, my thought here was to go with a little shorter mizzen (than usually) to get less impact of the weight. The dimensions will be slightly larger than usual as well, to maintain fair safety margin from stress over time.

Fair winds / Swede

[Ketch Siri]

Found a place where there are several testimonials, a dozen threads, about the Halo radar and it´s performance in different situations - from actual users. It is at the forum: The Hull Truth.
They are mostly from the fishing community - and probably a few with paying guests or semi-pros (my guess) and also some vendors. So, it´s not from the prospective of lean energy consumption and rough weather at open seas in mind - when they discuss what´s better or worse.

A lot of people "around" the owners of Halo like to see "tests" and "side by side" reviews made in almost like controlled/described environments. Pictures, text, references... the whole nine yards.
Well, if I had one - I would be more than happy to say what I felt about it. But would I had the time to make a test of this and a test of that ten times over - just because someone got the curiosity about some special situation still not covered... To be honest, I don´t think so.

For me it´s great just to get the "gut feeling" about how it works, especially from people who has been out working "professionally or semi pro" on the helm with this type of equipment and have some experience from not just good weather situations - and know what you like to have as a support when, not if, you run into a bad weather situation.
There are one user, who are Captain of a cruising ship (have obviously a lot of experience from what to expect from a radar in different type of seas and weather) who thought it was a well performing radar on his private boat, so far.

To sum up (from my point of view) what I saw in all these treads about the Halo - so far, and I read it all. It seem to be a good piece of equipment for the money (knowing it sum up to more than the usual radar-dome we see on most vessels).
It still has some draw backs, compare to (for example) Furuno 6 - 25 kW open array (as most people there like to compare it to). Those, talking against it, points out the MARPA function - even thou the last update (dec 2016) made it much better (no side by side comparison - nor test-values since).
What I also found out. There are surprisingly few who said they where not satisfied with their "upgrade" to Halo (can´t remember any - actually). As several of the vendors stated they installed much more than a hand full of them over the last year and a half.
I´ll guess IF there would have been people upset with lack of performance, support, service - they would not have been silent in all these debates over it´s result when using it.

Sorry for such long reply.
By this, I love to invite and hear from anybody who tried/used it at an offshore sailing vessel - with the energy consumption, reliability, performing and easy to use - in mind.
Maybe even in freezing zones/weather, to hear if there are any issues when the temperature goes below freezing point...

Fair winds / Swede