Radarfocus for 30 hours

South Pacific Familyadventure 2008
Claes Brodin
Mon 19 Jun 2017 05:10
Leaving Leixoes in light winds in the afternoon we were surrounded by dense fog.
Allthough Portuguese shipping forecast over VHF prognosed occasional fogpatches, reality was dense fog surrounding Dora Mac for almost 30hours.
Traffic was heavy mainly with small craft dominated by fishing vessels and occasional pleasure crafts.On the contrary to general belief small crafts are more demanding in fog since fishing vessels regularly change course and all small crafts give smaller echoes on the radarscreen. Big ships generally stay on course,give large radarechoes and are all equpped with AIS.
On the picture outside Cap Finisterre there are three fishingvessels heading north, and the craft heading south is a sailboat. We saw none of them through the fog.

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