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Originally Posted by C2 RIBS
To add insult to everyone who has a passive radar reflector on your RIBS (as we do), I attended a training day on Friday where the experts from Qinteq attended to reveal details of how they assess radar reflectors and how useful or not they are.
They carried out a full review following the tragic deaths of three yachtsman onboard a yacht Ouzo off Bembridge Isle Of Wight some years agao and discovered that most were not up to the job. They all could be sold as radar reflectors but when facts and figures were reviewed on how radars collected the info we were all virtually invisible. ( I accept that putting a reflector up is better than not)
The best performers that could almost help us were the Medium or large Tri Lens and also the Echomax , both passive units.
The only real solution for our small boats is to put up active radar reflectors such as the Seame or Echomax version (name escapes me). These draw a small amount of power but send back a signal to the area that was monitoring . These units easily reached the recommended meterage of cover needed to be seen.
I am not an expert on radar use and have fitted tri lens units to our RIBs but this recent information squarely showed me that the only type to give a good cover is an active unit. The plastic tube ones probably give less off than a person!!!
I hope to soon have the graphs and figures to support this from the training day
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I would agree that active reflectors are best, I guess the only solution is to have both passive and active. As if you lose all power, and thus the active doesn't work and you are adrift then the passive will give you some chance of being seen.
However, I don't wear two pairs of pants, two life jackets, have two engines one diesel one petrol just in case.
So as you say, something has got to be better than nothing.
