[Public-list] Radar - reasonable choices

[Mpete53 at aol.com]

I agree with Michel, a good chart plotting system linked to GPS will be of  
greater use to us fail weather sailors.
 
I use a laptop with The Captn Voyager program. Its nice to plan a trip  at 
the dinning room table and is a great source of info underway. I brought a  boat 
up to Staten Island from Annapolis last year using the laptop. Good weather  
and we ran 38 hours straight through. I had never made the run and it was a  
great comfort to have it aboard especially down Delaware Bay on a moonless  
night.
In the fog where you are is only half the story, Radar tells you the  other 
half are there others vessels around you. Radar takes a while to  learn to 
read, is hard to read is the boat is not on a very  steady course and the range of 
the smaller units is quite limited. If you  get one spend a lot of time using 
it. Play a game with it. Put a friend that can  steer a course on the wheel 
and you look at the radar. Try and pick out between  aids to navigation and 
other vessels. The more time you spent seriously using it  the more valuable a 
tool it will be when you really need it.
 
My money is for laptop and gps first, but a radar is on my wish list.
 
Mark

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