Flash controller for anchor light

The OP has an interesting idea there until everyone else thinks "How clever, we must do that as well." Then he will be back to square one and anchorages will resemble seventies discos! :rolleyes:
 
Ric said:
Agree totally - the colreg requiring an " all round white light" dates from the time when technology had just advanced to paraffin lamps. Pedantic minds have then transposed this to meaning that the white light should be at the mast head on a sailing boat on the grounds that anywhere else would potentially be obscured by the mast (totally ignoring the physics of refraction). We thus have the absurd situation that a boat can be completely invisible at eye level but be legal due to an invisible mast head light.

A few years ago in south of France a young man was killed when he drove a small RIB flat out into the side of a sailing yacht with a masthead anchor light.
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Clearly going far too fast and not looking in an area where there were other boats.

I've never seen a problem with anchor lights being displayed at the top of a mast - just a matter of looking and as our American cousins call it being spatially aware.
 
Giblets said:
The OP has an interesting idea there until everyone else thinks "How clever, we must do that as well." Then he will be back to square one and anchorages will resemble seventies discos! :rolleyes:
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There will need to be a committee to dish out the colours of the flashing lights. Perhaps we could install an intelligent network and the lights could flash in sequence or a message or act like the pulsing lights on motorway roadworks.
 
Sandy said:
There will need to be a committee to dish out the colours of the flashing lights. Perhaps we could install an intelligent network and the lights could flash in sequence or a message or act like the pulsing lights on motorway roadworks.
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It would probably be a lot easier (and cheaper) to stick small pads of 3M retro-reflective tape at convenient positions around the boat and then carry a small high power LED torch like a Lenser (other makes are available) to aid location.
 
skipmac said:
The fact is, people do lots of things they shouldn't and don't do a lot of things they should and it won't hurt the responsible ones to take a little extra care to guard against those that don't.
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Very true.

One of the "extra care" things you could do is ensure your boat is properly illuminated, and then the people who aren't shining a torch ahead of them, wearing NVGs, or staring up into the sky instead of in front of them, are less likely to crash into you :)

A few years ago a forumite was hit and seriously damaged by a small trawler while anchored near Portsmouth with only a mast-top light. The light was well above the fisherman's field of view from inside his wheelhouse.

Pete
 
Sandy said:
Clearly going far too fast and not looking in an area where there were other boats.

I've never seen a problem with anchor lights being displayed at the top of a mast - just a matter of looking and as our American cousins call it being spatially aware.
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Astonishing - so a few lights far above the eyeline with no way of judging distance is a good thing? An unlit boat on dark water really is not that visible and the mast has got to be the silliest place to put a light for close quarter avoidance.

I don't like flashing lights on other boats myself as I find them disruptive to sleep through the cabin windows so I'd probably be quietly seething if anchored nearby (must relax more).

We have a (so far) unique way of finding our boat in the dark which is a string of solar powered tiny white garden LEDs across the bimini so they make a flat arch shape. Individually they cannot be seen more than 15-20 yards away but by some odd quirk I don't understand you can see them collectively from half a mile away so late night inebriated dinghy rides now at least wander in the right direction towards them, bouncing off the odd unlit boat with light in the sky.
 
Sandy said:
Clearly going far too fast and not looking in an area where there were other boats.

I've never seen a problem with anchor lights being displayed at the top of a mast - just a matter of looking and as our American cousins call it being spatially aware.
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Anchor lights at the masthead are crazy in most situations. It's nothing to do with spacial awareness. Far better to have your light at the helmsman's eye level of an approaching boat. But if you make a habit of anchoring in a main shipping channel, then your masthead light will be fine. :rolleyes:
 
While obeying orders and stripping the Tesco Xmas lights from the bushes outside, I noted they were powered by AAA batteries and had lasted the best part of a month going on at 1800 and off at about 0200 hours according to the timing I had set; it can be varied. They were less than a fiver each.

I thought brilliant and slipped them (there are two strings) into my bag for the boat. I intend to string them from the bow to stern on both sides at deck level (cable ties are us) with the switch end in the cockpit.

With my white anchor light in the fore triangle showing the bow and the white fixed lights along the length of the deck I reckon I meet the requirements of Rule 30 (a) (i) and 30 (c) not withstanding I'm only 7.5 metres LOA.

It will show where I am and which way I am pointing and best of all its cheap and painless, until the boss finds her decorations have gone. Reminder: Lay Up time, slip lights into the Xmas box.
 
You could get some coloured underwater lights like some of the types on the mobo forum ... you'd spot your boat in an anchorage OK and you could even get a gold medallion to go with them!
 
Install all the lights you think you need to be able to see as you stumble home drunk to your boat and then use one of those gsm powered alarms and send it a text message to activate the relay and switch the lights on.

Could also use it to power up the sound system and herald your heroic return with some appropriate 120 bpm music
Under water lights seem to suit this taste level and of course a medallion. Oh and lots of Prosecco.
Do you have an address in Essex?
 
Last year I bought a cheap dimmable Aldi led lantern for use as an anchor light and a couple of these along the boom would be easily identified at a distance. It's an excellent light, still on the original batteries, used about times last year overnight.
 
Gwylan said:
Install all the lights you think you need to be able to see as you stumble home drunk to your boat and then use one of those gsm powered alarms and send it a text message to activate the relay and switch the lights on.

Could also use it to power up the sound system and herald your heroic return with some appropriate 120 bpm music
Under water lights seem to suit this taste level and of course a medallion. Oh and lots of Prosecco.
Do you have an address in Essex?
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Crikey if a flashing anchor light gets you that wound up how do survive at Christmas?
 
Ric said:
Crikey if a flashing anchor light gets you that wound up how do survive at Christmas?
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If you wish to have a flashing light on board a simple 555 timer used in astable mode driving a small relay that drives the light would do the job

astable-mode-schematic.gif


http://www.555-timer-circuits.com/operating-modes.html

Maplin do a kit for what you need

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/555-astable-switch-kit-n33fl

I have a long range garage type remote control to switch on my cockpit lights to help me find my boat.
 
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