RADAR and squalls

9º 08.128n 121º 17.696w

Thu Apr 25 2019

This is a B&G boat. Brooks and Gatehouse, that is, a division of Simrad that markets their gizmos to the sailing crowd. Zeus3 chart plotter, 4G radar, AC42 hydraulic ram autopilot, forward scan sonar. The various bits play well together, but don’t think of the forward scan sonar as something that would warn us of a barely submerged container that fell off a ship. More about that in another post. . .

We we purchased JollyDogs in 2013, she was equipped with a 2008 vintage Raymarine C120 chart plotter and basic wind/depth/speed instruments running the NMEA 0183 analog data bus. No radar was installed. That was about the time NMEA 2000 (digital data bus) instruments were hitting the market and NMEA 0183 instrument were nearing end of life, so we elected to upgrade everything.

We decided to fire Raymarine and go with B&G. I hated the Raymarine human interface with its non-intuitive menus, and if I recall Raymarine didn’t yet have their flavour (today’s nod to proper English spelling, Cecilia) of low power draw broadband radar on the market yet. We used a lot of Garmin avionics in our test helicopter and their interface was first rate, but Garmin didn’t really have great game in the sailing electronics world at the time. B&G had introduced a new, low power use, high target resolution broadband radar product. I discussed the technology with my RF signature and electronics wizard pals at work and was sold on the concept.

Isabel was an old school minimalist monohull sailor at the time, and didn’t have a lot of use for radar, nor the expense of the purchase, but I was still turning the money crank at the time, so my whining won. We threw down for the B&G 4G dome, a device that allows 2 simultaneous radar screens at different ranges. We can set one to 36 nm to watch for squalls, the other at 1 nm or less to look for tiny targets in the dark of night. I think Ralph and Helen on Moondrifter helped push her over the edge with their observation of how many pongeros were out fishing at night without any lights, and how often their radar had helped them avoid colliding with those guys in their little boats.

Turns out the B&G 4G radar is fantastic at resolving little targets up close. Not only does it pick out little boats within just a few meters of JollyDogs, it also gives us the capability to arrive at a crowded anchorage in the dark of night and safely maneuver to an anchoring spot with good clearance all round. Kind of like IFR flying, I liken it to a deadly serious video game. When used appropriately, it’s a tool that vastly improves situational awareness.

Sailing in the Sea of Cortez didn’t offer much opportunity to examine rain showers on radar, to familiarize ourselves with how they look, how to adjust various settings to pick out the signal and eliminate the noise, etc. The last 24 hours have provided a great learning experience for all of us as we’ve encountered a couple of fairly intense rain cells that provide a nice understandable radar target, and some light showers that create no target at all. Helps us understand the strengths and limitations of the technology.

In my old bug smasher pilot days, one could equip an airplane with a storm scope, a device that looked for static electricity in the atmosphere. Cheaper and lighter than radar, it was considered a good tool for avoiding areas of intense storm activity, especially with lightening. Did I get that right, Mike? We haven’t yet looked at a squall with embedded lightening (that fire and brimstone we soooo wish to avoid), so we don’t know what that looks like. Bet we’ll find out before this trip is over.

When the possibility of encountering squalls exists, the prudent sailor sets a sail plan for night passage time, one that hopefully won’t require much or any scrambling around on deck reefing and adjusting sails. It’s a lot safer remaining in the cockpit.

A fresh breeze and rough seas informed our decision to go with a single reef after lunch yesterday, and we’ve been blasting along since then. It seemed an appropriate sail plan for the night, but we had expected to shake out the reef by dawn when we could see the squalls visually and the forecast winds were meant to ease off.

We can see just fine now and the overcast is nearly 100%. We’re encountering light rain in the area that doesn’t paint on the radar, and we’ve painted a couple of stronger rain cells South of us but haven’t noticed significant impact on wind direction or speed. The breeze is still strong, and the forecast is more favorable for some fast sailing all day. For now, that reef stays in the main sail, and we’ll be keeping a sharp eye out for pop-up radar targets. Those squalls seem to form all of a sudden, and the visual signature can be deceiving. We love our 4G radar!

We’ll also go easy on the rum cake. Gotta keep our wits about us.