Back To Sea With Me: Radar and Security

I just wrapped up 2 more weeks of training at PMI and am home for a 3-day weekend. The first week at school was a class/certification for Vessel Security Officer and a one-day class on general leadership. Week 2 was five days on Radar for our "Radar Observer Unlimited" certification. Having been a radar operator in the Navy, I wasn't too concerned about the practical aspect of this class, but the theory part of the course, which includes theory, bandwidths, pulse lengths, beam widths, etc, somewhat caught me off-gaurd. I managed to keep up, but it required a little more focus than I thought. All said and done, the class was good and I feel like I'm fairly proficient at any and all radar plotting and operation.

We spend a majority of the week calculating the closest point of approach and real course and speed of radar contacts, using a large plot called a Radar plotting sheet, or a maneuvering board. We also spent a fair amount of time taking bearings and ranges to fixed objects for general navigation.

We received our certificates for Radar and Security, and next week we move into ARPA, which is Automatic Radar Plotting Aids. ARPA is the feature that will essentially track your contacts for you on the radar and give you real courses and speeds, therefore eliminating the need to plot the contacts. Not all boats are equipped with ARPA, so we still need to have a full grasp in the plotting aspect of radar operations to determine that data manually.

Here's a few pics from class....