Could someone enlighten me on Lifebuoy lights?

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Mirelle

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I learned to sail back in the Old Stone Age (well, the manila rope, cotton sails and leadline Age) and never had my brain improved at a sailing school, but have been trying to equip the boat to the approved modern standards, mainly because I now have small children.

Having learned (thanks to many helpful people, here) about lifebuoys and danbuoys, the next thing that grabs my attention is the matter of lifebuoy lights.

So far as I can see, these come in approximately these varieties:

1. Ordinary battery, not flashing.

observed drawback; not very waterproof and best stowed below when boat not under way

2. Ditto, flashing

3. Decidedly more expensive big ship type; sealed unit activated on immersion, 5 year life then throw away.

4. Small versions of above.

I suspect that I ought to save up my pennies and buy type no 3.

Is this right? or is there more to this (there certainly was, with danbuoys and lifebuoys!)
 
There seems to be an almost universal problem with yacht lifebuoy lights - sitting upside down in their brackets exposed to the elements after a time the glass cover to the bulb fills with water - happens on the most sophisticated and expensive....

Although I am not a great admirer of many Plastimo products their life/danbuoy light does not fill with water. It does not flash but I am not sure that is a big problem - wavelets at sea level....

I think YM or similar did a test of those available and found the cheap Plastimo light to be far better than any other...
 
I wd equip the kids with the strap-on personal strobe things which make them feel much more "tooled up" although they are £20ish: the little lights are not that much good in coastal ligght where most MOB's occur. Try turning them on and looking for them from 200 yds away in a marina towards to shore - sometimes les visible than reflections off the water. Noneof this is MCA requirement but then er, neither is an epirb...
 
I have one of the Jimmy Green No 2 types and have had it for at least ten years. At the beginning of each season I put in new batteries and test it and it works, and each autumn lay-up I stick it in the back of the car where it flashes away until I store it in the loft. It has survived ten seasons without leaking so I guess it does that ok, although its a pretty weak affair. I see that you can get a light for life jacket now - planes have had them for years "...the light will flash automatically and there is a whistle for attracting attention...." - so you could do that as an alternative. So far only seen them as an option when purchasing new though - perhaps there's a new business venture here?
 
Mirelle,
can I suggest uoside down lights are OK with drawbacks, but as others pointed out lights on lifejackets are probably better. In addition I suggest you purchase some 3M reflective tape (cheap on ebay), and put it all over the lifebuoys and the danbuoy body. Then purchase one of the million candlepower lamps that are charged off 12v. The reflective performance is fantastic, and it somewhat mitigates the backlight issue talked about on above threads, as it will light up when you hit it at quite a distance.
I also have a long strip on either side of the boom. Try photographing the side of my boat at night, and all that shows up is the boom!
 
You can certainly get the lifejacket lights as a stand alone item (hardway marine have some)

I reckon the flashing light is more visible than a steady beam as it tends to be no by the receptors on the side of the eye and thus draw attention towards it. I have a couple of flashing ones that are powered by 4xC cells and have never had a problem with water ingress.
 
One of my clients uses Pyramid Technologies Model 326A Xenon Strobe Floating Electric Water Lights and seems to be happy with them. That is in a situation where they are in commercial vessel use all year around.

They are quite big and the battery is replacable (although not necessarily what you find in your local store - from memory this unit uses a square 6v battery like is common in torches but instead of springs on top has a couple of connector poles - think batteries were about USD20-30 when I last looked a year or so back). Link to them (as of now) is http://www.pyramidtechnologies.com/products/product.asp?ID=3&CID=16&PID=95. Would probably knock the casualty out if you threw it at them /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif. There are other similar makes.

I just use simple cheap non flashing ones which take a bunch of D Cells and torch bulb myself. I vaseline up the O rings on the lens dome, etc and that seems to keep the water out. Often the O rings can stand replacing with decent ones which is what I do and it improves the water resistance - get them from a mechanical engineers' supply type place.

Like anything similar, the cheap ones would not stand being left on the rail for years on end (which comment applies to the Life Buoys as well although tatty faded ones seem to abound in marinas 'cos peeps leave them out - well they do here in places where they are not inclined to get nicked).

John
 
The trouble with the flashing ones is that they only spend a small proportion of their time lit, so the chance of missing them in a rough sea is greatly increased as the chance of them being "on" when tey momentarily peep above a wave is small.
 
Starting with the lifebuoy itself, the quality these days is very poor IMO, they have taken cheap and nasty way towards the nasty end of the scale.

We returned a lifebuoy to Plastimo where the tabs holding the grab line fell apart from UV damage after one season and we store them in a cockpit locker when not in use! In any case it seems many are too small for me to get more than one arm in...

Lights are unbelievably poor quality and as others have said end up with the lens full of water, even if the threads are vaselined or taped, I've tried both. We currently have one lifebuoy with a McMurdo strobe light which I think cost about £50 on it's own and which is now 6 or 7 years old, no water still works fine. The other lifebouy has had a succession of lights as they seem these days to be sold as a pair to be considered disposable, all have ended up leaking and/or with the tilt switch inoperative, often both although we do have a Plastimo one that has lasted 3 months so far...

I would go for flashing over fixed and splash out for a decent strobe light for one of them at least. I would also second TCMs idea of strobe lights for the kids if on deck at night, we carry some I think costing about £13 that velcro strap on an arm although they are not automatic.

Robin
 
In addittion to their habbit of leaking, Plastimo 'store upside-down' lights have an annoying habbit of flashing on briefly when the boat rolls sharply or falls off a wave. This destroys your night vision. I have not tried other makes, I have used life-jacket type lights mounted on top of the danbuoy and arranged so that the lanyard is pulled as the danbuoy is thrown.
 
I was most surprised to hear that the xenon strobe lights are very much less effective in a seaway than a steady light. I cannot remember where this gem of information came from except that it was sufficiently authorative to make me change mine back to steady lights.

The explanation was exactly as described by dulcibella.
 
Thank you, everyone.

There are certain advantages to a gaff cutter, I find.

A tad more windage is neither here nor there, so we went for a 30" Perrybuoy lifebuoy, which is just about bomb proof, hung from the lightboards in the shrouds, with the danbuoy up the aft shroud with the flag in a plastic pipe seized to the shrouds and a couple of plastic clips wired onto the shroud holding the lower end, and the connecting line in another bit of plastic pipe.

This lot, needless to say, being on the side of the boat where the offset prop isn't!

It looks like I will save up my pennies and spring for the McMurdo item, as I already stow enough things below when leaving the boat, but will also take the very good advice offered and buy everyone personal lights, to fit on their safety harnesses, for night sailing.
 
I think that you will find that they are so bright when they fire that they reflect off a wide area of waves and one is not dependant on identifying the pin prick of light itself (little lifejacket/personal strobes might be different, but not talking about those).

John
 
I would agree with that as far as simple white lights are concerned but is this perhaps offset by the much greater brightness of the strobe light?

We currently have one strobe and one fixed, maybe we should throw both - or rather whichever one of us is still on board should, or perhaps we'd best stay on board in the first place!
 
Re: Not convinced about manual lifejacket/sleeve lights

I think if you were unlucky enough to fall overboard at night, you're going to fall suddenly into very cold water, assuming you haven't bashed your head on anything on the way down, you're likely to be in shock, arms waving madly, problems breathing etc. The auto lifejacket will inflate, hopefully. Tryng to reach around and calmly switch on a light strapped to your sleeve is going to be neither easy, nor very practical IMHO. They are certainly more expensive but autolights only the only option I think, unless in nice warm seas! And whistles are just silly really aren't they?
 
I'll probably get flamed for this - but if we weren't required to fit one by RORC rules I'm not sure I'd bother. I think the chance of such a light being useful is vanishingly small.

The problem with the RORC requirements of Danbuoy, lifebuoy, light and drogue all connected is that it makes deploying the whole caboodle much more complex and liable to snagging - that means that it is not feasible to chuck the lifebuoy as an immediate response to MoB - rather you have to find the casualty again before deploying...

At night everyone should be strapped on and wearing a lifejacket (which has a light of its own)
 
Re: Not convinced about manual lifejacket/sleeve lights

I quite agree. It's about as practical as Crewsaver's face mask.

They really have to be automatic, to do any good, but one does not want them going off with a bit of spray...
 
I think I agree. I'm coming to this new, never having bothered before, but whilst it is quite possible to design a boat with the liferaft stowed in the transom, with the danbuoy pole and drogue up a pipe alongside the cockpit, and the lifebuoy and light within instant grab and chuck range of the helmsbody, this is not feasible on an older cruiser.

Getting the danbuoy warp round the prop (quite easy to do, even with floating lines, in a seaway) would be counterproductive...
 
I quite agree about lifebuoys.

We ended up with Perrybuoy 30" solid rings, a la district council (actually, I notice that councils don't have them now - too many got chucked in!) because they are not rubbish (we have them on the ships I manage) they can be chucked to windward a bit and one can get into them!

Having gone that far, the next step is Mr McMurdo's product...
 
[ QUOTE ]
The trouble with the flashing ones is that they only spend a small proportion of their time lit, so the chance of missing them in a rough sea is greatly increased as the chance of them being "on" when tey momentarily peep above a wave is small.

[/ QUOTE ]

But conversely they will be flashing well beyond the hour that a fixed light runs out of battery power......... /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

JOHN
 
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