Boating after dark - options?

[Twist]

I'm looking for some advice on how to outfit for short stints out on the Chesapeake Bay in the dark. I've waded through most of what I can find on THT and other sites on radar choices but nearly all of those discussions I've found are centered around sport fishing, seeing birds, etc. Honestly, the main use for me is going to be one of two things: going out before sun up or coming back home from evening dinner at a crab deck with the sun going down/dark. Boats, bouys, channel markers, and crab pot floats are the main things I'm trying to avoid if I'm returning back to my home dock after dark. My current equipment is a Garmin 8616 MFD, GT56 transducer.

It seems like my choices are adding radar, night vision, and/or FLIR. Use in the night or heavy fog isn't going to happen very often but when I need it I have no problem spending for a quality reliable solution. I've been a long time owner/user of Garmin aviation and motorcycle products and like them and the company support that I've experienced but have an open mind if something is clearly better.

So, no off-shore, occasional use on the Chesapeake Bay for finding my way out and back in the dark. What would you do?

 

[Billv]

I think radar is essential for night time boat use. You can see obstacles from a distance with time to respond

 

[kirk a]

Definitely Radar as #1. Garmin makes a good radar and it should be compatible with your MFD. Adding a set of Navionics charts and overlaying the Radar on top will really help.

However, it is not magic. Best practice is to use the Radar All. The. Time. During. The. Day. Practice at various ranges. I prefer a very close range with Radar, like on order of 1-1.5 miles. It is astounding how many boats provide minimal return from different angles. I used to go with a wider range, until figuring out the minimal returns.

The other options - Night Vision, FLIR are better as additional options, I think radar overlaying a good chart is the right starting point.

 

[loubeer]

Definitely Radar as #1. Garmin makes a good radar and it should be compatible with your MFD. Adding a set of Navionics charts and overlaying the Radar on top will really help.

However, it is not magic. Best practice is to use the Radar All. The. Time. During. The. Day. Practice at various ranges. I prefer a very close range with Radar, like on order of 1-1.5 miles. It is astounding how many boats provide minimal return from different angles. I used to go with a wider range, until figuring out the minimal returns.

The other options - Night Vision, FLIR are better as additional options, I think radar overlaying a good chart is the right starting point.

Fully agree with Kirk A. I have boated for over 40 years and still do my best to avoid night piloting. A few comments - the more familiar you are with the route, the better; slow down; have another set of eyes on watch and make sure your horn works; give one crewmember a spotlight to use as needed and to illuminate the final docking destination.

 

[Hookup1]

A basic Garmin GMR18 radar with some type of heading sensor is adequate. Practice during the day with it. Bring someone with you to oversee your piloting and keep you safe while you try to run the boat without look out the window. Slow speed. Airplane pilots train "under the hood" all the time.

 

[glacierbaze]

FLIR was selling some models for $500 in the last couple of days, on the THT Great Deals Thread, page 804-805.

 

[SkunkBoat]

Garmin Fantom 18 will do for radar. I find that using a split screen with one side chart overlay and one side blackout (hide chart,tracks/waypoints). Then you can easily see radar targets against black.
1 or 2 mile range is best on the black side. Very small targets only appear close-in. I zoom out sometimes for a big picture. The chart side is zoomed out to 3 or 4.
I run hours in the dark, but offshore, not in a bay. Thats a whole other thing. Tight channels. Channel traffic. Lots of lights on shoreline to mess with you. Really hard to pick out a boat from background.
Fantom radar will color moving/crossing targets and show tails. Its good to have.
Radar will never see the little foam crab pot floats. You need to know where they will be. Mark areas that are always covered in pots. Use your safely-made daytime trails as a road in the dark.
Don't explore in the dark.
FLIR is $ but you will see everything...

 

[Sardinia306Canyon]

I have a Fantom 18 on my Canyon and it works as supposed but i still need to practice and check inclination using either a floating ball fender or one of the net buoys all around. On my Venture 34 in Costa Rica i could see PU foam filled the 5 gallon canister i used as mooring buoy using the non Phantom 18".
You will need to establish a running speed and then adjust the radars inclination that he scans horizontally and near the bow to correct bow rise.
Minimum planing speed with no strong bow rise around 18 knots is a reasonable speed offshore, inshore it would be below 8 knots or what is allowed. You may use the flaps to lower bow, not very economical but effective.

Chris

 

[Finest Kind]

Get the Garmin radar and as said above USE IT during the day when you really don't need it in order to learn what the screen is really showing you.
AND, like any other piece of equipment on the boat, if you do not exercise it regularly, you never know if its going to work when you NEED IT after sitting unused for an expended period of time in the salt water environment. Use it or lose it.

My buddy has FLIR on his 35 Henriques which we use for overnight canyon trips.
Yes, you can see everything in the dark, BUT staring at that screen while running will give you intense motion sickness.
I NEVER get seasick but can not stand to look at that screen for any length of time!

 

[Automated14]

I'm looking for some advice on how to outfit for short stints out on the Chesapeake Bay in the dark. I've waded through most of what I can find on THT and other sites on radar choices but nearly all of those discussions I've found are centered around sport fishing, seeing birds, etc. Honestly, the main use for me is going to be one of two things: going out before sun up or coming back home from evening dinner at a crab deck with the sun going down/dark. Boats, bouys, channel markers, and crab pot floats are the main things I'm trying to avoid if I'm returning back to my home dock after dark. My current equipment is a Garmin 8616 MFD, GT56 transducer.

It seems like my choices are adding radar, night vision, and/or FLIR. Use in the night or heavy fog isn't going to happen very often but when I need it I have no problem spending for a quality reliable solution. I've been a long time owner/user of Garmin aviation and motorcycle products and like them and the company support that I've experienced but have an open mind if something is clearly better.

So, no off-shore, occasional use on the Chesapeake Bay for finding my way out and back in the dark. What would you do?

What you are describing is exactly how I boat at night. I implement most of what you've heard so far. I run split screen radar and nav map on a 12" garmin MFD. I also have a nightwave low light camera. I run that one to a separate older MFD- the one I took out and replaced with my Garmin. If you are running at hull speed, it's so easy. you have so much time to avoid things. I don't know how the chesapeake bay is as far as light polution, but I'm on the Great South Bay off Long Island and there is so much background light that my low light nightwave works even on cloudy moonless night.

if you want to run on plane.... that's harder. I only do that when I'm in the area of the Bay that I know has no bouys. In that case, the radar is going to warn me pretty early about other boats and following my previous tracks on the MFD will keep me off the bottom. but it's still risky. We don't get floaing logs here or that kind of thing but personal watercraft with no lights are very hard to spot even with radar.

on the radar, you are dead on right that you don't need anything fancy. I'm a simpleton and I just need to see the red blobs lol. hey, that's a boat. The best advice you've gotten so far is to use the radar during the day to get used to where the targets actually are as they relate to where they show up on your screen.

a flir and raymarine display with that mode which highlights the objects it sees sounds pretty good too. I was all set on the last boat. had all brand new raymarine mfd's but sold the boat before I could install the flir so I didn't get to try it. Again, probably overkill for you if you are going to places you know with known tracks and go slow.

 

[SkunkBoat]

One more thing...AutoPilot!
Having autopilot is the greatest thing ever. x2 in the dark and fog.
Your eyes are up and out there most of the time. Sometimes down at your screen. hand on throttle.
You go where you wanted to go. You're not fiddling with radar and then saying "oh shit, I need to steer!"

Your radar screen should not be up above your head.

 

[everwhom]

One thing to note - people's boating conditions and risk tolerances vary wildly. I hear of folks running happily at full speed at night on rivers and also others who won't go past no-wake speed at night and only with 2 extra lookouts. A lot depends on local conditions. Where I fish offshore (off Cape Cod and Nantucket), once you are out of the harbor you're in the open ocean and anything on radar is very likely a boat or other real obstacle. Most offshore folks happily run at planing speeds at night, but I prefer to avoid if I can.

Radar is critical for me, but much more for fog than night as boat lights are very visible. I'd also highly recommend getting an AIS system which will let others know your exact position, heading, and speed and let you see the same from other AIS users. The Garmin 800 is an excellent black-box model with a built in antenna splitter.

 

[SkunkBoat]

hehehe and another thing...

Radar and radar overlay on a chart is normally a "heading up" display.
Like its looking out your front window. When you turn, EVERYTHING spins except you

If you usually run your chart "North UP", that will take some getting used to.
IMO, without radar overlay, North Up is way better.

 

[wspitler]

Also consider maintaining your eye’s night vision as much as possible. Prior to getting underway allow for dark adaptation. Keep your interior and MFD lights to the very minimum. . Use no white interior lights and be careful not to allow your spotlight to reflect off the bow. One bright flash in your boat can ruin your night vision for an hour.

 

[luckydude]

Definitely Radar as #1. Garmin makes a good radar and it should be compatible with your MFD. Adding a set of Navionics charts and overlaying the Radar on top will really help.

However, it is not magic. Best practice is to use the Radar All. The. Time. During. The. Day. Practice at various ranges. I prefer a very close range with Radar, like on order of 1-1.5 miles. It is astounding how many boats provide minimal return from different angles. I used to go with a wider range, until figuring out the minimal returns.

The other options - Night Vision, FLIR are better as additional options, I think radar overlaying a good chart is the right starting point.

I agree with most of this, especially run the radar all the time, during the day when it is clear, scan around you and see what it picks up.
Play with the settings, especially gain. Mount the radar 6 inches off your hard top and tilt it forward 4-5 degrees, you care about what is in front of you way more than what is behind you. The Fantom 18 should work fine for you, that's what I have.

He has an 8616, I know that screen, split it in half and run charts on one side and radar on a black background on the other side. You can see the boats WAY better without chart clutter. Garmin will annoy you a bet (unless you figure how to get around this) on my 8610, it wants the radar range and the chart range to be the same, like they are overlayed even when they are not. If I figure out how to fix that, I'll try and rember to report back how.

 

[luckydude]

One more thing...AutoPilot!
Having autopilot is the greatest thing ever. x2 in the dark and fog.
Your eyes are up and out there most of the time. Sometimes down at your screen. hand on throttle.
You go where you wanted to go. You're not fiddling with radar and then saying "oh shit, I need to steer!"

Your radar screen should not be up above your head.

I waited 2.5 years to install autopilot and I'm an idiot. It's one of the best upgrades I've done, it's like having another guy on the boat. Once I had it, I get quite annoyed when I get on a boat without it, especially trolling for fish. It's _so_ nice.

 

[Sardinia306Canyon]

especially trolling for fish. I

I never had a autopilot in 28 years of boating and i did not missed it, till i bought my Canyon.
12-20 nautical miles are mostly longest runs to fishing spots so i can do that steering whai i mostly still do.
However, the heading hold feature is really great for setting/recovering the lines when i am alone and keep the boat tracking straight (or following a multi waypoint route) when trolling.

If you usually run your chart "North UP", that will take some getting used to.
IMO, without radar overlay, North Up is way better.

Yep, north up as we are in a boat and not driving a car and yes i want the radar screen clean, nothing else than nothing or targets. The other night i had the waypoints on the radar screen and it drove me nuts, same for charts.
Perfectly a radar would run on it's own screen so see any smallest detail, if only one screen then in a split screen but i find it more difficult to detect small targets.

And also Yes; no light inside boat as they will reduce night vision, if necessary then dim red light. I did hundreds of night fishing trips without radar, search light, etc and i never hit anything, the human eye can see much better as we think if it don't get disturbed or glared.
And no light bars or search lights in other than tight channels in front of dock, first they produce glare and reduce own visibility and second they confuse other boaters about what is coming and where it goes.

Chris

 

[kirk a]

I am a north up sort on the GPS for normal usage. An experienced mariner friend who I trust completely, does things differently when navigating in fog or at night. Assume 2 screens. On one of them, orient the chart course up, bring the range waaaay in tight, and overlay radar. On the other screen zoom out the gps and keep it north up to give you the bigger picture.

This takes a bit of getting used to, but eliminates the mental gymnastics of translating radar returns on a course up setting. I like having the overlay this way, so that I can quickly ascertain if a return is likely to be a buoy or not. That really helps to allow focus on the other radar returns.

My system does not allow radar to be shown at different ranges on different MFD Screens