Cruising Sailors Forum Archive

Using radar reflectors.

We spent a couple of months cruising Puget Sound, the San Juans and up to Desolation Sound last summer. I've always liked to practice with the radar during good visibility conditions and it paid off a couple of times when we got into some foggy passages. It was interesting to notice the type and strength of the returns and which boats had radar reflectors. Of the hundreds of sailboats we saw only a couple of small ones (mid 20 footers) were without reflectors. Those with reflectors all showed up on every radar sweep and at a good range. A lot of 20 and 30-something foot power boats were less visible. It seems like the ones about 25-30 feet with flying bridges were the ones with the weakest returns. My observation is that in magazines and sites like ours for sailors it is a given that you should have a reflector. The drama starts when the topic of what is the best type comes up ;o). Is it safe to assume that there is not a similar discussion among power boaters? For background our radar is a 4kw Raymarine about 6 years old and seems to work well on most targets.

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