How close would a ship have to be to another ship before the captains could see the other due to the horizon?

Question

How close would a ship have to be to another ship before the captains could see the other due to the horizon?

Answer 1

The distance to the horizon varies as the height of the viewer.

5' - 3 miles

10'  -  4.25 miles

20'  -  6 miles

50'  -  9.5 miles

check out this site:

http://www.boatsafe.com/tools/horizon.ht...

Answer 2

Standing on the ground with h = 1.70 m (eye-level height), the horizon is at a distance of 4.7 km.

Standing on a hill or tower of 100 m height, the horizon is at a distance of 36 km

figure it out for yourself

formula to determine distance to horizon.

distance in km = the square of 13h

substitute ship height for h (in meters)

Answer 3

I would think it would depend on how big the ship is. When I was on a cruise this past month, you could see other big ships for miles and miles...about 15 at least.

Answer 4

with glasses on =fer away

without glasses on = close nuff to hear him screaming

Answer 5

The answers given for visual sight are pretty much correct.  Radar waves bend slightly and you could theoretically gain some distance and be seen sooner on radar than with the naked eye.

Answer 6

depends on ship size

depends on the weather

depends if ur blind

Answer 7

The formula for the visibility between 2 objects in perfect visibility (9+ on the international visibility code) is.  Sight range in nautical miles = 1.17 x Square root of the height of eye of the observer + 1.17 x the square root of the height of the object or light you are looking at.  This is based on the curve of the Earth.  In the nautical publication the American Practical Navigator, Bowditch, there is a luminous range diagram for lights.  The entering arguments for this are luminous range, how bright is the light, meteorological visibility, how clear is the atmosphere, and nominal range or haw far the light can be seen from in the existing conditions.  With any two of these arguments you can find the third using this luminous range diagram.  I hope this helps.