Save-A-Boat - The Forum for Plastic Classic Rebuilds!

I will probably be sailing w/o radar this year in some sketchy places and would like to load up CIRRUS with at least 3 radar reflectors, one on each of shrouds and one or heck two on backstay. I have seen the long skinny reflectors. How do these work? I have the Davis Deluxe reflector but have no idea if it works.

Cheers,
Clint
That's the problem with these things...

The more the merrier!

I have one of the Mobri reflectors mounted on the mast, and when cruising I add a regular round, faceted one on the aft side of the radar post. I have no idea what my signal looks like to others.

The traditional ones (I guess the Davis deluxe is one of these) are the best, usually. The Blipper and Mobris are highly touted, but who really knows. A reflector is required to make your boat stand out, so there's no harm in having several.

Just as a data-point:

When I was out cruising, I would call up freighters on the radio from time-to-time to ask if they could see the boat, and they always said yes. These ranged from a few miles away out to about 20 (as seen on the 24-mile radar by us). So I think we were adequately visible.

We had one of those reflectors that is a half dozen or so flat "circles" of metal that are interlocked so that the outer shape is a sphere, if you ignore all the spaces between the various plates (I forget what you call that type - is that the Davis?). It was mounted just below the port-side spreader, about halfway between the mast and the cap shroud.

This was on a fiberglass boat.

I remember reading a survey of all the reflectors in Practical Sailor five-or-so years ago, and I believe that the type I'm describing above came out near the top of the pack, even though was one of the cheapest. The Firdell Blipper didn't do too badly either (I noticed that one because it's what was on the boat I was sailing on at the time). It's the one that's enclosed, with an outer skin shaped like a big pill capsule.

FWIW --- Rachel

Here's a link to an interesting article on radar reflectors. The article is a little dated, but the research is probably sound.

For those with limited time, you might want to jump straight to the conclusions (page 4). They seemed to think that radar reflectors are marginal at best, and, when it comes to radar reflectors at least, size matters.. the bigger the better.

http://www.ussailing.org/safety/Studies ... r_test.htm

By way of more recent technology, I think the AIS receiver will be a welcome addition to the radar reflector on many crusing boats:

http://www.si-tex.com/html/ais_radar.html