NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Lights etc.
From: Rodney Myrvaagnes
Date: 2003 Oct 10, 11:04 -0500
From: Rodney Myrvaagnes
Date: 2003 Oct 10, 11:04 -0500
On Fri, 10 Oct 2003 19:14:03 +0530, Keith Williams wrote: >This white light practice needs to be sorted out asap. It's stupid of us >yachties to think we can wander around with lights which confuse the >professionals, let alone each other. > >Why one earth would a sailor use solely an all-round white when >underway? WE NEED THE COLOURED SECTORS - they tell other mariners who I hope that my lighting maximizes the information available to other mariners. I have a sailboat slightly under 1 m long, although its lights are the size for over 12. The stock arrangement is r/g on the bow pulpit, and white on the stern, with a steaming light about 30 feet up the mast. I have added a tricolor lantern with an all-around white at the masthead. The tricolor can be used only when the engine is off. So the stock motoring arrangement is invisible over a fairly near horizon. To make the boat as visible under power as it is under sail when motoring at sea, I replace the white stern light and the steaming light with the all-around white that is 56 feet high. Until the r/g bow lights, about 6 feet high, appear over the horizon, this arrangement looks exactly like the single all-around white. I suggest that a vessel that can only go 6 kts under power can reasonably be regarded as overtaken by a fast-moving large vessel until the bow lights become visible. I ask the professionals in this discussion if there is any better [legal] arrangement I could use. I have seen others use the tricolor along with the steaming light. Having the steaming light below the red/green is a violation of ColRegs. If its directional information is of value to ships at a distance, and there is no other mandated light array that might be confused with this. perhaps the IMO should move for a revision of ColRegs. Rodney Myrvaagnes J36 Opinionated old geezer Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.