Shanghai dawn, with pretty darn good radar

Crack of dawn, really, and nearly flat calm as we’re inside Cape Cod Bay, Race Point/Provincetown on the port quarter. In the bigger version of this picture you can see some shore lights around the entrance to the CCC, as the Canal is called, from whence that ship emerged. You can also see the remnants of the bothersome light leakage I wrote about the other day, coming off the steaming light just below the compass and a little also off the green running light forward. Note that the engine gauge lights aren’t on because my mate Rich is actually running the boat from below, and Volvo automatically switches gauge lights with engine control (nice).
   But I had been up on this bridge from the very wee hours of the morning and, though it was clear, had much appreciated the quality of the Raymarine radar. Check the screen shot below, full size here; with the E-120 set head up at 24 mile range, that’s Race Point off my port bow, a MARPA target in the ship channel to Boston, and Cape Ann on the starboard beam. I’ve used the VRM to note that the boat’s relatively dinky 4kW dome scanner is seeing the Boston RACON buoy about 32 miles away, which seems quite good. A couple of days later we ran into thick fog when entering Fisher’s Island Sound and learned that this radar could also distinguish little outboard boats at close range, again all settings on ‘auto’. Impressive. I think the scanner may be one of Raymarine’s new models, which they’ve been rather quiet about, but I need to check that out. Eventually I will also tell you about the problems we had with this radar (nothing to do with the scanner).
   In the meantime, have a wonderful weekend, which is a three or four day end-of-summer Labor Day special here in the states. If you’re anywhere near me, you really should check out Windjammer Weekend, especially today’s gathering of the fleet.