Indeed, that is true. We have some powerful search lights, I can light up a bank ten miles away. But they destroy your night vision for a time being and can blind other vessels in the area(or even cars driving on the bank). So we use them only in tight quarters. We rely most heavily on radars for navigation and guidance and chart plotters and gps units for reference to help understand the radar picture. Swing meters, header lines, predictor lines also help. When dealing with large vessels, a lot of what you think you see out the window is an optical illusion, especially in low light or limited visibility conditions. Surprisingly, we operate the same way in the daytime too.


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