In June 1992, I was on a test run of a 50-foot Scarab performance boat powered by quad Caterpillar diesels off the coast of Long Beach, CA. The boat was purpose-built to attempt to break the Around-Britain endurance record for the MacKinnon family who owned Drambuie liquor. Typical for the California coast in early summer, we suddenly found ourselves engulfed in heavy fog.
We slowed to an idle and listened closely for other vessels. First, we heard a horn, but didn’t see anything. Suddenly the driver put the drives in gear and launched us forward to avoid what turned out to be the Catalina Express ferry bearing down on us.
Fortunately, the Scarab had — what was at that time — some advanced electronics, including radar. The only way he could see that 100-foot-plus vessel was on the screen. If there was no radar on the boat, I might not be here — and the boat, Drambuie Tantalus, wouldn’t have broken the record.
Today, radar is available from myriad suppliers in the marine electronics realm, including Raymarine, Garmin, B&G, and Furuno. Moreover, companies like Watchit and Tocaro Blue are using artificial intelligence to further advance safety aboard.
“You can have radar on any kind of boat, even sailboats,” said Luis Obelmejias, owner of Wave Marine Electrics and Electronics in Huntington Beach, Calif. “It’s important if you go out into the ocean.”
With radar being integrated into multifunction displays by most electronics manufacturers, it’s almost as easy to use as a video game. But remember the first time you played a video game? It took a while to get good.
“The most important thing when using radar is familiarity,” said Ben Stein, editor of Panbo.com, a website that focuses on marine technology. “The time to gain that familiarity is not in the dark or in pea-soup fog.”
Radar works by transmitting radio waves from a rotating antenna that bounce off objects and are received back by the antenna. The accompanying receiver calculates the distance and bearing of the target, displaying it on a dedicated screen or on a multifunction display. The familiarity that Stein was referring to is learning what an object looks like on the screen. A boat will look different from an aid to navigation, which will appear differently from a landmass or an approaching weather front.
You also need to choose the range you want to see on the screen. Some displays show the distance as a ring. For example, at four miles of range with two rings shown, the first ring would indicate a target two miles away and the second would be four miles.
“When you first look at a radar scope, you’re going to see land, boats and other above-water targets,” said Stein. “One of the things you want to learn by watching the scope is what an aid to navigation might look like and what a boat might look like. You can also use it to determine a storm versus what a land mass would look like.”
Land and channel markers are fixed, so knowing their position is straightforward. You’ll want to watch a moving boat for a little time to determine its bearing. This is important when you’re operating with reduced visibility so you can ensure that you’ll avoid a collision.
Additionally, some aids to navigation are equipped with radar so they’ll have their own signature. Screens also vary in how they display things. A target moving toward you might be colored red to make sure you see the danger, while one moving away could be green.
For fishing, radars have been advanced to give them the ability to see a grouping of birds miles away. “This is where that familiarity becomes very important,” said Stein. “You’re spotting birds at a great distance.”
Wave Marine Electronics has installed radar on boats as short as 25 feet, which is about the smallest you’d want to take out into the ocean. The most popular products are Raymarine’s Axiom series of multifunction displays and customers have also request Garmin product.
If you’re buying dedicated hardware including the antenna, cabling and a screen, plan to spend between $2,000 and $5,000. Stein said that Furuno offers a wireless product that connects to a tablet called First Watch Radar. It lets you wirelessly access radar images on iOS devices like an iPad or iPhone. Depending on the store, prices range around $1,000.
Stein said that advances made in antennas have made them basically maintenance free. Early antennas used magnetrons that operated on high frequencies and required lots of power. Today’s solid-state radar antennas require less maintenance, have improved performance and draw much less voltage. Radar uses rotating antennas to transmit the waves, either in an enclosed casing called a radome or spinning as an open array. The radomes are used on smaller boats with limited space while the open array can be a few feet long and needs more space to spin without hitting anything.
If a boat is equipped with radar — and a collision or accident takes place — “The Coast Guard’s expectation is that if you have situational awareness tools aboard, you are using them,” said Stein. In other words, you need to be paying attention.
A new technology, Automatic Identification System, broadcasts information about a vessel, including the name, position, course, speed and navigation status. It will overlay on a radar scope, giving a captain more information.
Technology company Tocaro Blue has a product called Proteus that uses radar return in tandem with machine learning to analyze what’s coming back to provide more detailed information about a given target.
Recently, Raymarine announced a collaboration with Watchit, a leader in collision prevention. Watchit’s anti-collision technology will be combined with Raymarine chartplotters and Raymarine’s LightHouse Charts have been designated as the official map supplier for Watchit.
Using algorithms and sensor fusion, Watchit’s Smart Collision Prevention system is based on automotive safety technology, analyzing a boat’s existing data to provide warnings before a collision happens. Watchit technology also warns of a pending grounding.
Once you’ve become comfortable with radar, you’ll see what it plays such an important role in keeping you and your crew safe.
