Basic rule for navigation lights & how to learn them

[Daydream believer]

I have decided that my knowledge of ships navigation lights is a little lacking. I can remember the basics for the typical power driven vessel etc & when entering some ports where I might expect dredging I open Reeds at the relevant page to remind me of the lights at night.
But that is not really good enough & the usual - well just keep out of the way- does work ..But !!!

So my question to those that have done the learning is this:-
In setting up the system of lights & day shapes did the experts follow a system that I have not noticed & if I knew it, would it make it easier to learn them. Or is it just a random system & there is no "sequence" to the design of the light system used in the colregs for shipping

As an example the ILA buoyage follows the clock & the lights are:- quick, 3, 6 etc - west is waisted north shapes point up-so one can work it out & remember a sequence fairly easily
What method did those doing their yachtmaster etc. use to remember the lights & day shapes of shipping for the col regs? I do not mean look at cards or watch a youtube vid etc but how did they get it into the brain. ie when I was at school we would use terms like " senior offices have curly alban hair till old age" ( or some carp like that) to remember sine cosine tangent. or we would be forced to write 100 lines as punishment for forgetting something
So what did you do to remember ships lights

(no! do not tell us about your school days, we all know that you lived in a shoe box on the motorway)?

 

[PaulRainbow]

Surely too many to have little ditties for them all ?

When i did my YM theory i used a set of flip cards. I have to confess to not being able to remember them all now, but would be easy enough to have a flick through from time to time as a reminder.

Shoe box on the motorway ? You must have been very well off, we lived in a paper bag in a hedge

 

[Sandy]

I have a wee app called Vessel Lights from Google Play

 

[johnalison]

I haven't done a night trip for the last few years and I have forgotten most of them already. I think that constant use is the only way to remember them, and something like flip cards the best way of learning.

 

[LadyInBed]

I know the common ones, AIS gives me chapter and verse on the rest

 

[RupertW]

Flash cards worked for me and we keep a pack of day and a pack of night ones on board to amuse the guests before a sail and it seems to help their confidence when sharing a night watch.

 

[prv]

when I was at school we would use terms like " senior offices have curly alban hair till old age" ( or some carp like that) to remember sine cosine tangent.

I have a few like that for lights and shapes - copied and pasted from a recent thread:

"Red over white, frying tonight" - a fishing boat.
Same rhyme fits for green over white, because that's a kind of fishing boat too.
Distinguish between them - a trawler is easier to deal with because you know his nets are behind him, so he's green for easy. Other gear could be anywhere, so it's red for a warning.

Restricted in ability to manoeuvre - you too would be restricted in your ability to manoeuvre if you had a spiky diamond in between your balls.
At night the diamond is shiny white and the balls are sore and red.

Not under command is because of a balls-up (I think a lot of people use this one ). Two balls up.
They're the same balls as for RAM, so they're still red.

A pilot wears a white-topped officer's hat over his red face from climbing up the ladder.

The three red lights for constrained by draught simply mirror the straight-up-and-down cylinder shown in daytime - though I don't know of a specific mnemonic for the cylinder itself.

Pete

 

[Topcat47]

I have the "seaman's guide to the rules of the road" on board and go through the book at the start of each sailing season. Not everything sticks but the main ones do and oddities are soon found in my experience.

 

[rogerthebodger]

A dredger also restricted in it ability to maneuver and the side to pass (diamonds are a girls best friend. ) (or green for go)

I keep a set for laminated cards on board that cover all colregs plus more. Don't know If I got then from PBO many many years ago.

Similar to these

 

[Poignard]

Flash cards worked for me and we keep a pack of day and a pack of night ones on board to amuse the guests before a sail and it seems to help their confidence when sharing a night watch.

That's how I learned. I could probably do with a refresher now. I know the common ones but some of the more obscure ones would have me rushing for the almanac.

 

[Spirit (of Glenans)]

I have a few like that for lights and shapes - copied and pasted from a recent thread:

"Red over white, frying tonight" - a fishing boat.
Same rhyme fits for green over white, because that's a kind of fishing boat too.
Distinguish between them - a trawler is easier to deal with because you know his nets are behind him, so he's green for easy. Other gear could be anywhere, so it's red for a warning.

Restricted in ability to manoeuvre - you too would be restricted in your ability to manoeuvre if you had a spiky diamond in between your balls.
At night the diamond is shiny white and the balls are sore and red.

Not under command is because of a balls-up (I think a lot of people use this one ). Two balls up.
They're the same balls as for RAM, so they're still red.

A pilot wears a white-topped officer's hat over his red face from climbing up the ladder.

The three red lights for constrained by draught simply mirror the straight-up-and-down cylinder shown in daytime - though I don't know of a specific mnemonic for the cylinder itself.

Pete

Cylinder........barrel( keg).........draught. Simples!

 

[Major_Clanger]

Red over white - frying tonight
White over red - pilot in bed

I've forgotten most of the other ones, but know which page of Reed's to look them up in. Flip cards are good, but mostly if you're swatting for an exam. Also, although not always the case, there is usually time to ascertain what the lights mean long before you stand in to danger.

 

[RupertW]

Red over white - frying tonight
White over red - pilot in bed

I've forgotten most of the other ones, but know which page of Reed's to look them up in. Flip cards are good, but mostly if you're swatting for an exam. Also, although not always the case, there is usually time to ascertain what the lights mean long before you stand in to danger.

The cards are no use as a refeerence but idly testing yourself when on watch day or night keeps you on your toes and passes the time. Just have to remember to look up every now and again in case a real life puzzle needs solving.

 

[chewi]

. " senior offices have curly alban hair till old age"

in my case...
SOH CAH TOA
Sex on Hard Concrete Always Hurts The Other 'Alf

Two Old Angels Sitting on High Chatting About Heaven


I cant write what I used for resistor stripe codes.....

 

[BelleSerene]

Re fixed lights, I recall being reminded by a characterful lady I hired for a day before I did my YM aboard our own boat, that the signature of an isolated danger mark (two flashes corresponding to its two balls) indicated ‘f*** off’.

Re ships’ lights, I was chastened last weekend when out alone in the foggy estuary of the Elbe after dark, to find that I couldn’t recall what three vertical white lights signified. I was reassured to learn before encountering it, that the tug’s tow was over 200m long.

Although the lights & shapes Bible is down below and there’s a laminated card in the cockpit, what reminded me was the excellent iPhone ‘nav lights’ app which I keep in my page of sailing apps. This illustrates all the lights and shapes, and also has a ‘test myself’ mode akin to flash cards - just what I would recommend for the occasional brush-up. Which I evidently needed on Sunday evening, and shall humbly use again.

 

[Daydream believer]

in my case...
SOH CAH TOA
Sex on Hard Concrete Always Hurts The Other 'Alf

.

Yes! but somehow it does not help me with lights for- not under command, limited in ability to manouver, constrained by draft,-
So how do I connect that with red lights?

 

[bedouin]

Red over Green - sailing machine?
Red over Red - Captain's in bed / dead
Three reds in a row - no room below

But in practice all you really need to remember are the basic port / starboard/ stern /steaming and if you see and lights or shapes you don't recognise then you are probably give way vessel anyway

 

[Graham376]

I have a copy of the excellent "A Seaman's Guide to the Rule Of The Road" (ISBN 0 948 254 009) which I occasionally scan. Many years ago after hours of swotting I managed to scrape through the YM exam but doubt I would do so now as we do very few night passages these days so out of practice with the more unusual light configurations, even if I could see them with the number of bright work/deck lights often masking them.

 

[Daydream believer]

I do quite a lot of sailing in the dark & one thing that made me really aware of my limitations at understanding lights was between Ostend & Ramsgate in heavy weather one night. It was too rough to go below to get any books up to look up lights. I was single handed.

My AIS showed a ship moving very slowly in a SE direction but his stbd light indicated he was moving in a NW direction. In the F7 & choppy sea & poor vis (rain) I could not tell what was what. He was dead on my course & fairly close when i first saw him. He had lights everywhere.

I know that AIS will sometimes give the wrong position information. This was once demonstrated to me when a yacht 2 miles on my starboard bow was showing to be 2 miles on my port quarter by the AIS. The AIS position was clearly wrong as the target could be seen to sail clean through the Roche Douvres light house

When I arrived near the ship it turned out to be a cable laying ship traveling in reverse. Fortunately he called me on VHF, because if I had followed the AIS info I would have gone over his cable.

 

[BelleSerene]

When I arrived near the ship it turned out to be a cable laying ship traveling in reverse. Fortunately he called me on VHF, because if I had followed the AIS info I would have gone over his cable.

How alarming that must have been.

He should have been displaying red, white, red for restricted manoeuvrability. But I think once I heard his announcement over the radio I’d have been too relieved to tell him either!