Hi all First thread on YF, so here go's. I,m new to yacthing, but not new to the sea. What i'm thinking of , is buying a yacth in the uk and sailing it back to Australia. Been looking at mostly 35 to 42 foot vessels, like HALLBERG RASSY 38 Beneteau (FR) 36 CC or something of the like. All advice taken onboard. Going to take about a year for me to get the cash and info togeter. Hoping to make some friends on the way. I'm a marine diesel fitter buy trade so maybe I mite be help some fellow seafarers on the way. jim
Welcome aboard Jim and a Happy New Year to ya. Sounds like a good plan, but read up on the piracy threads here. You might find it safer to have that boat transported unless you're going the long way. There's some real treacherous waters east of the Med.
piracy thanks for the wecome taking the long way around was always the plan, As for pirates, well at the end of the day there just lowly thiefs that just happen to be on a boat. I say, if you look like a victim, you'll end up being one. Having worked in so called piracy areas , my moto is, Shoot first, ask questions later. Oh, and keep your radar off as much as you can.
Ummm, me too. Wouldn't your radar be your first alert that you have a boat coming towards you from miles away?
well I'll try to explane. It wouldnt help at all if your got AIS on. But most of these scumbags are looking for a easy target. Most have short range radar, 36 miles or there abouts . With a poor power supply, This makes it hard to track and plot a entersecting couse to deploy there fast boats for boarding. With your own radar on, this makes you stand out like dogs balls. They can pick you up as a taget within 3 to 4 sweeps. then they shutdown the radar. This gives them less of a chance of being spotted by you or any aircraft in the area. So knowing this tactic gives you two advange. First it makes you look a bit suss, not a easy target. 2 you may put the idea in there heads, that your vessel mite be a trap. Also knowing this and if you are doing a radar watch. You can keep a lookout for intermediate radar shadows. May give you time to tool up. And no, I'm not a pirate, Its just a old trawlermans trick when you your trying to slip away from the main fleet
You may well find that with broad band radar the pulsed based target phenomenon you describe is not an issue. Having recently done the trip you intend, both the long way and the canal transit. You might like to consider joining a cruiser convoy with organised security. How did Darwin fare after the cyclone?
Broadband radar I've worked with the new broadband radars and am extremely impressed. Virtually no RF footprint, although they do get upset if another broadband radar is close by (2-300 meters). Haven't had a to work one offshore, but in a riverine / harbor environment they outperform traditional radar by a long shot, providing a much crisper ability to discriminate targets. When a traditional radar is dropping ARPA targets due to noise, the broadband is solid. Low power, low cost, and improved performance... its a game changing technology....
sorry I'm a bit old school thanks chuckb & Time. I'll keep a eye out and look into broadband radar . Well there you go, I've only been on the forum for a day and learning something allready. how cools that? thanks again jim
We might be overestimating how technically savy these pirates are. In all my days the only radar signals I've seen (without using RDF equipment) are those put out by buoys and when being targeted while passing Camp Legune. Tell me more about how an ordinary radar signal shows.
NYCAP123 - I suppose you don't need to be too technoligally savy to be a pirate as long as you hold a stash of RPG and can find prey. badyatchsman point is that the only technology the pirates are known to regularly use other than weapons and fast boats is radar. Generally speaking business has been good and they generally have some decent modern radar's avaialble. On basic principles, most navigation radars use something around 9,500mhz and listen for return signals in that range, so if you are transmitting a big noisy signal in that range from your own radar your morelikly to be aquired earlier and more definitavley as a target on someone elses radar screen as the signal return from your boat will be added to the transmission signal from your radar. In practice this phenomenon is of variable reality. I certianly wouldn't be turning my radar off to avoid attracting pirates. Always prefer to know whos coming.
This is something totally new to me. I know how to use my equipment, but I don't consider myself tech-savvy. I had no idea that using radar would enhance you're own visibility on someone else's radar. Can anybody point me towards links on this subject?
I've been doing a little research and what I'm reading seems to indicate that you would need a passive radar system to pick up someone's radar. I can't find anything that says it can be picked up on a normal radar. Please forward any links. Looking to learn.
Radar... For the military (or well funded, read narco) types there are systems that look for RF signals of all types... VHF, radar, most anything... and the stronger the signal the better the DF. If you're seriously trying to counter detection, then you need to lower your RF signal. Traditional radar you can turn off, but lose the benefit of it's returns. Broadband lets you lower the RF and still see what's approaching you... very important for the good guys whether they're interested in simply maintaining own-ship security, or a more proactive role. I have no knowledge of whether the traditional radars pump up the return to their brethren, although I'd suspect there's got to be some sort of interplay given that Racon can paint a morse code onto your display using ancient technology... Chuck
That's what I was thinking, passive radar or an RDF. Not likely the pirates are using that, which means you'll both show up on each other's screens at a bout the same time unless yours is turned off.
NYCAP - Exactly correct. The extreme case is that if you are a pirate have an 8ft 25kw high speed radar, tracking someone with a 24inc 6kw unit, you'd detect them well before they'd see you, and you'd be able to run an intercept with your radar off, and get a slight advantage by reducing your preys ability to detect you until you were much closer to them then if you left your radar on. This phenomenon is drastically reduced by the use of broad band transmitters, wich by definition use a range of frequencies of varying amplitudes. Especially so in new generation 4G broad band systems. I think the university of alaska has some published papers on pulse enchanced radar signal detection relating to fishing fleets. but i can't off hand find it.
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