Does your radar see small fishing boats?

[nfbr]

I have a Raymarine Quantum 2 Doppler, and it does not reliably see small fishing boats in coastal situations, regardless of tuning.

Open boats smaller than the sea state are invisible most of the time.

Wood / Glass cabin top fishing boats of about 2x sea state height will be picked up on about 30% of sweeps, but not enough to lock onto reliably.

And occasionally a wood / glass older larger fishing trawler just won't show up reliably. They of course have AIS turned off to hide their best locations at night.

Steel boats are of course well detected.

I have never seen it detect any type of fishing buoy.

You can sometimes tune to find them, but clutter becomes significant, as they appear / disappear, it's not reliable.
Mounting at first spreader in front of mast.

How does yours perform?

[Tin Tin]

We have had Raymarine radars for 10 years Furunos for 10 prior to that. On a flat sea I was surprised how much the radars would pick up, speed boats etc (probably reflected off the outboard). When boats start disappearing behind ocean swells then it becomes more problematic, however if you set your alarm rings properly even a whiff of another boat will give an alert, maybe not on every sweep. At night everyone should have their lights on. Fog is more difficult. Obviously in heavy rain and wild sea it all gets harder.

[Hudson Force]

We had a couple of Furunos over the years; 'not as important for our times in Florida, but essential in New England cruising. Channel markers on poles as well as nuns and cans showed well, as well as most small vessels. As others have said, the small wood vessels were the least likely to show a radar screen image.

I'll add that we had a radar "backup" for the small non-metallic vessels. Our schipperke would consistently bark in the direction of vessels that didn't appear on our radar. Once, in a heavy fog off Newport, our dog Zorro was focused with barking off our port bow while we saw nothing on our radar screen. We slowed and I took to keeping a close visual lookout. Sure enough, a ca. 25' wood sloop appeared on a port tack with four people in the cockpit with drinks and snacks. They were no more than 30 yards away when I saw them and called by to my wife at the helm for a hard turn to port. I doubt that they ever saw us or even heard our dog barking while they seemed to be focused on a party conversation. We're amazed by how some people used to boating in the fog are so casual about it!

[Hudson Force]

I should include the "down side" to my post above. Our schipperke would bark at all the other boats on a clear day too!

[Cheechako]

I would have no trouble picking up fishing trawlers etc. Nav Bouys usually showed up well. Hidden harbors behind spits of land showed well. Not sure how well small open boats would get picked up with any sea state though.

[IRENE]

Can you post a picture of the antenna mounting location? A photo other than from below would be best.

[RaymondR]

My Raymarine Quantum picks up navigation buoys, pretty well all of which are now poly, reliably. I suspect that this is because the poly has aluminium in it for UV resistance. However it sometimes fails to detect glass fibre dingies and even fairly large motor cruisers.

[tanglewood]

I can't speak to the Raymarine Doppler, but I had a Simrad doppler (4G or whatever they call it) for a short while and was seriously underwhelmed by its performance.

[boatpoker]

I am a certifed Radar/ARPA/MARPA operator and am frustrated by pleasure craft radar available today. I learned on old Furuno open array sets where FTC, STC, Tune and Gain were 4 individual knobs which could be individually adjusted without searching a menu for them. Those four functions require almost continuous andjustment in foul changeable conditions yet I've seen newer units where I could not even find a couple of them.

One cannot even properly adjust a RADAR without easy access to those functions. They have dummed down RADAR adjustments to use the automatic settings which in many cases are useless.

Their automatic settings are almost totally based on range and none of the required four meaningful controls have (or can have) an "automatic" setting except as related to range even if you can find them four or five levels deep in a menu when entering a strange harbour with heavy rainfall and high winds at midnight. ... They are basically toys.

My Radar course on simulators 30 years ago was 11 weeks. The manual that comes with todays toys can't make a radar operator.
See if you can find an old Furuno open array manual from the 80's and you'll see what I mean.

[RaymondR]

My main use for the radar is leaving and entering anchorages in the dark and keeping an eye of things sneaking up on me from behind in navigation channels for which I find the Quantum displayed on my MFD very adequate.

I particularly like the ability to overlay the radar display onto the chart which confirms the geographical location of the vessel is where the GPS says it is.

And all this at the helm position which is particularly handy for a single hander. The vessel had a radar at the nav station below when I bought it which rendered it useless.

[clownfishsydney]

Mine did not pick up when on a longer range but when range was changed to a few miles, it did.

[Hudson Force]

Originally Posted by clownfishsydney

Mine did not pick up when on a longer range but when range was changed to a few miles, it did.

This is a very important observation. I believe this is true for all models of radar. Decreasing speed, posting a lookout, and reducing radar range always seem like good safety practices when suspecting traffic or obstacles during low visibility.

[poiu]

I have a Furuno NXT. Pretty good, but won’t pick up fishing skiffs. Small yachts also unless really near, maybe 1/4 mile. Sea state makes a massive difference. For resolution you need a big scanner. 4’ ideally.

[deblen]

Originally Posted by clownfishsydney

Mine did not pick up when on a longer range but when range was changed to a few miles, it did.

All radars work this way.They are amazing in clear weather & calm seas.

When you really need your radar in poor visibility/rough seas-my 30+ yrs experience with multiple brands/models showed me that 35ft & up fishing vessels of wood or glass with some metallic rigging plus a radar reflector could only be picked up reliably at 3-4NM.
Smaller vessels less than 2 NM.
Rule 19-Poor visibility-which means you can't see with your naked eyes-regardless of reason-wx,night,rough seas,rolling boat,etc.
You are required by this rule to slow down ,so that you don't "outrun your headlights".
Rule 19-There is NO Stand-On vessels under poor vis. conditions-ALL vessels are Give Way.
Yes,I know many of the other boats won't do this-It is still your legal & moral responsibly,as captain of your vessel,to avoid collision by any means possible.


Operate your radar on the shortest range that assures you have time to avoid closest vessels & keep a near constant watch of radar display under these conditions.This would normally mean max 2-3NM range.

Switch up to 6NM range every 15 min. or so for a peak at farther vessels that May become a threat in future.
This is no fun and very tiring-but if you have to travel in poor conditions.....
Cheers/Len

[deblen]

Originally Posted by Hudson Force

This is a very important observation. I believe this is true for all models of radar. Decreasing speed, posting a lookout, and reducing radar range always seem like good safety practices when suspecting traffic or obstacles during low visibility.

Yes,it is true of all radar. For sailing speeds in lo visibility,suggest using 2-3NM range max.
There are several technical reasons why radars operate this way.
1. STC curve: The Sea Clutter control-REDUCES spurious returns (clutter) from wave tops,etc & works on a distance vs suppression basis.It is at it's peak efficiency in separating real targets from clutter at a specific,thin donut < 1/4 NM wide. That donut is centered at a specific distance from you and is adjusted inward or outward from your boat according to the adjustment of the sea clutter control.Targets within that narrow donut band will give decent echos.Targets closer to your boat will be suppressed(made smaller or non-existent) and targets outside that band will be mixed/buried in clutter.


Because I sold radars,I had to teach many of my first time commercial customer/users on basic radar.
I came up with a proven,good working proceedure for setting gain & sea clutter before you leave dock,and a simple workable method of correctly adjusting sea clutter as you travel. KISS

2.Rain clutter. Use it for rain only-it is not safe,or necessary to use it for sea clutter.
3.Gain-Adjust it correctly before you leave the dock.Avoid playing with it at sea. The STC(sea clutter) control does that for you for normal close in navigating.

4.Water,wet wood,wet fiberglass,wet sails,even dampness in them-will give some echo.

Accept the fact that all marine radars work as above,or worse than above,when the wx is nasty.
I will post my home made first time radar users notes later.
Cheers/Len