NAVIGATION BRIEFING

Just a few minutes of sailing in dense fog takes most sailors well out of their comfort zones: it’s disorientating and, quite frankly, scary for many. Here are some tips on how to prepare for, and deal with, a ‘pea soup’:

At sea, fog can be summed up as condensed water vapour or just thick cloud on the surface. Sea fog, or advection fog, forms when relatively warm moist air moves over colder water and cools to its dew point temperature, causing the air to saturate.

Unlike land fog, or radiation fog, sea fog can occur at any time of day and still exist with quite strong winds. It only really clears with a change of air mass – usually with the passage of a cold front. Without the passage of a cold