Navigation light relocation

Being Seen: Navigation Lights, AIS, and Radar Reflectors

It's been a couple of months since I experienced a very lively weekend at anchor, during which I managed to get caught with my pants down in 45+ knots and dragged out to sea. Since I wish never to experience that feeling again I picked up a Rocna 10 (22lbs.) anchor which is going to replace the 12 lb. Danforth currently hanging from the pulpit. Of course a new primary anchor needs to be easily accessible and ready to immediately deploy in order to be effective, not buried under the PFDs, boathooks and other detritus that seems to collect in Patriot's lazarette. That means installing a bow roller. Which means moving the nav lights.

Navigation lights only work when they're seen and I'm concerned the anchor will partially block the light from certain angles. I have two possible approaches: install a pulpit mounted bi-color type or go with the type that mounts on the mast.

I'd love to hear what owners of plow type anchors have done to solve this problem. I've been searching for days and haven't found a light that I'm both satisfied with and won't break the bank. I'm definitely going LED.

Greg, our bow light red/green is mounted on the pulpit. If you zoom in on the photo, you can see it's location. It is not LED but like you, our next one will be. I replaced the anchor light with an LED a couple on this ago.
Rick

Rick where did you get your light? I haven't found anything that mounts to the pulpit, only masthead and individual nav lights.

I just put a LED festoon unit in that familiar Hella Marine-type bi-color ("bulb" is about $50 at WM). Similar LED in the old stern light. Works great, brighter than incandescent, total drain of all is .8 amp/hour.

Gregoryulrich said:

It's been a couple of months since I experienced a very lively weekend at anchor, during which I managed to get caught with my pants down in 45+ knots and dragged out to sea. Since I wish never to experience that feeling again I picked up a Rocna 10 (22lbs.) anchor which is going to replace the 12 lb. Danforth currently hanging from the pulpit. Of course a new primary anchor needs to be easily accessible and ready to immediately deploy in order to be effective, not buried under the PFDs, boathooks and other detritus that seems to collect in Patriot's lazarette. That means installing a bow roller. Which means moving the nav lights.

Navigation lights only work when they're seen and I'm concerned the anchor will partially block the light from certain angles. I have two possible approaches: install a pulpit mounted bi-color type or go with the type that mounts on the mast.

I'd love to hear what owners of plow type anchors have done to solve this problem. I've been searching for days and haven't found a light that I'm both satisfied with and won't break the bank. I'm definitely going LED.

Click to expand...

I had to tackle this problem on our prior boat, the Niagara 26. It's stock bow lights were the old Perko "eye brow" style, one mounted on either side of the headstay fitting. If we had a jib lashed to one side it would cover one of them. Being low down, they would be harder to see in a sea way, too.

After a few years, I pulled the pulpit off for and had some ss tubing welded across the inside of the front curve. Before it was welded on I shaped each end to match to inside curve of the existing tube and drilled a hole for the wiring to pass into to rail. That hole was, of course, out of sight once it was welded in place. I ran a wire thru another hole in the rear side of the new cross-tube, out the end where the new hole in the pulpit was and all the way down the pulpit leg. I found a local small welding shop that liked to do ss wire-feed welding and they did a great job of clamping it all where it should be and welding it up. I got to go out on the shop floor and explain the purpose and reason for the assembly. I also brought in a standard Aquasignal 25 ss bracket to also that welded on for the new combo red/green light. And.... they added two ss rod pieces from the cross tube to the front of the pulpit rail -- and then we could shackle the spinnaker halyard there! (This was before roller furling, so winding a halyard into a sail was not a concern.)

Anyhow, that reformatted red/green light was a LOT more visible from then on.

If you wonder why I did not simply install the aftermarket plastic light fixture on that clamps around the front of the pulpit rail, I knew people that had collided with pilings and broke their bow light lenses or mountings -- it's not good when the very first part of the boat that bumps into obstructions is the light lens.

By the 80's progressive builders like Ericson started putting all of their bow nav light fixtures on the pulpit, recessed.

Loren

Excellent information. Thanks guys!

Loren do you have a photo of your set up? I think I understand what you've got going on but I want to make sure.

Greg,
li think the fixture was original I just put an LED bulb in it like Christian.
Rick

I used an Aqua Signal 25. There is an optional rail-mounting kit available.




Roscoe
Ericson 25, #226
Oystercatcher

Bow Roller on E-27

Greg, I was able to install a Bow Roller on my E-27 without re locating the Nav Lights. See attached pics. I still keep my 14lb Danforth on the pulpit though. In hindsight I wish I had installed the roller to extend beyond the bow a little further. But this is a heavy duty bow roller I got brand new from Minney's Yacht Surplus in Costa Mesa about 8 years ago for $60.00. I simply remove the cowl vent when anchoring so not to mar it with the anchor chain.

http://www.minneysyachtsurplus.com

Gregoryulrich said:

Excellent information. Thanks guys!

Loren do you have a photo of your set up? I think I understand what you've got going on but I want to make sure.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately no pix from the old days. Probably some prints stashed in a shoebox never to be found again! The final appearance of the light fixture was really just like our later boat.
Loren

What about an all in one tri-color and anchor light on the masthead.

I have the nasa marine supernova combi and it is an impressive unit!
http://www.nasamarine.com/proddetail.php?prod=SupernovaCombi

We wouldn't think of putting the vhf antenna on the deck where it gets blocked by every passing wave right?
The nasa unit utilizes the ability of the led to function only with proper polarity to enable the anchor light and the tri-color to run on the same set of wires, thus eliminating the need to run a new or separate set of wires for the dual function.
I also have an led bi-color on the bow pulpit as a backup and to run with my steaming light when motoring.

I looked at those masthead lights but they're all north of $300.

Nav lights on the bow.

Gregory, Despite Loren's sage observation about not having plastic as the first line of defense when hitting something, the Aqua Signal Model 25 with bow rail installation kit is hard to pass up. It's well designed easy as pie to install and very well designed. That was my alternative when I removed the factory lights from the bow on our 1979 E25+ in order to install a massive bow roller for the 25 pound Bruce I kept up there. The entire process ended up very clean and I simply avoided hitting things with my bow pulpit. My vote is for the Aqua Signal in your case. Cheers, Glyn Judson, E31 hull #55, Marina del Rey CA

Our lights are interesting to think about.

It seems to me that the main purpose of nav lights relates to other yachts, under ordinary circumstances. We need to know what course the other guy is on, whether he is paralleling ours or headed towards us, or at us. In any seaway, running lights appear and disappear behind the waves that affect both vessels. There is nothing that captures more the attention of a night watch than these little disappearing colored lights.

In storm conditions, running lights are just about useless. Any yacht's course becomes highly erratic, the lights are obscured and misleading. Under these conditions a powerful tri-color masthead light would be swinging crazily, and I don't know how much help it would be to another yacht.

As for ships, it is not useful to assume they would see our lights at all. A container ship is not going to alter course because he sees a sailboat three miles away whose running light suggests a collision course. I think of them as trains. Even if they see us there's not much they can do about it. We have to see and avoid them with eyes, radar and AIS.

So, what is the value of increasing the power or visibility of our running lights beyond the expected minimums?

Is it prudent, is it an upside without a downside, or is a waste of money.

Navigation Light

It all depends on how much you run at night and how much you want to be seen while so doing. If you run at night a lot or sail offshore, there is no question that you want a masthead tri color. The visibility is really, really good 40 to 50 feet off the ground. Lights on the foredeck or topsides are really difficult to see by another boat. They can be pointing up or down shining into the waves instead of toward approaching boats or they can be blanked by dropped sails, mislaid docking lines, etc. The pulpit location is better but it can still be blanked by swells. One of the best ways to show yourself is to periodically shine a high power flashlight into a set sail but few of us do. You still need to keep your lower running lights as there are some areas that don't allow the masthead navigation.

If you run at night a bunch, north of $300 sounds cheap for the benefits.

I have a couple of takes on this. During my night passages along and across Lake Huron each summer I was frequently alarmed by how difficult it was to see the deck lights on many of the sailboats that I came across, with more than a few close calls, even though I was on watch. You might think a masthead tricolor is the answer, and it is certainly is a way to get the light up there. But remember that for coastal cruising a masthead tricolor is most often lost in the clutter of shore lights. So I stuck with my pulpet mounted lights, but I upgraded to the 40 series, the ones required for larger boats. These seem (at least to me) to be significantly brighter, and easier to see on the water.

Navigation Light Visibility

Steve,

Yea, this visibility thing is a problem. I have to admit that, on this boat, I do not have a mast head tri color. Most of my sailing has been north through the Islands. With the raging tides we have and the rocks, reefs, and islets not to mention deadheads, running at night can be a real nail biting experience. My nails are short enough already. I do have an Aqua signal 25 on the pulpit. It is much better than on the deck. I am about to change it to LED (much brighter) but I like your solution of going to a 40. They have twice the range. I used to go off shore a lot in my previous boat (different location) and I had a tri color that had a halogen light. It was incredibly bright and other boats told me that they could see it a very long ways out. Maybe ships could even see me if they were looking.

The shining of a high powered light on the mainsail every few minutes gives amazing visibility. The other boat may not know what you are but he certainly knows you are there!

I just ordered the Aqua Signal 25 from WM and will take Christian's advice and replace the bulb with an LED version, though not from WM on that one. Those double festoon lights are the same as the ones I replaced in the dome lights of a VW camper bus I owned. It looks like ebay has 4 of them for under $5 total.

4 X White Dome 16 LED

I've been replacing all of the interior bayonet lights with LED type and it's been a vast improvement in my power consumption. Anything in the 3000-3500 Kelvin range for the interiors is comparable to the warm light an incandescent puts out.

Next stop, choosing a bow roller...

Navigation Lights

Forgot to mention, the radar reflector should be put up at night. There are lots of larger boats running their radar and you are a lot more visible to them. The big giant guys can also see you. Otherwise you are a speck on the water.