Flashing anchor lights

[poter]

Firstly are flashing anchor lights legal?

Yachts sailing with flashing lights creat confusion. ...we had an instance off the west coast of Corsica seeing a white flashing light which we were unable to identify ? West cardinal? Turned out to be a yacht at anchor. Lucky the weather was good but if we had seen this in bad weather it would have added to the stress.
These lights must be banned. What is the rya and the various regulatory bodies doing about it?

What does the team think

 

[RichardS]

It's never bothered me but we don't do much night sailing, and when we do it's not in an area with many cardinals.

Richard

 

[TQA]

Wait till you get one sporting two lights which alternate between red and green.

Had me scratching my head for a while.

I know it is improper use but the most attention grabbing light I have come across is the rapid flashing strobe used on helicopters which was fitted at the stern of a French flagged boat.

 

[poter]

It's never bothered me but we don't do much night sailing, and when we do it's not in an area with many cardinals.

Richard

So you would be a candidate for total confusion if as you say you are not used to seeing cardinals, I fear for your safety if you were to see one of these strobes at night.

 

[Resolution]

We use one when anchored in a bay with other boats and when our legal masthead anchor light is less likely to be seen by a rib or similar speeding through the anchorage in the dark. Much more practical.
Cardinals out here are relatively rare, don't think many people could possibly mistake our flasher for a buoy topper.

 

[Resolution]

So you would be a candidate for total confusion if as you say you are not used to seeing cardinals, I fear for your safety if you were to see one of these strobes at night.

Depends on how you navigate. We would have studied the chart to check for lighthouses etc, and then we keep track of where we are continuously on the chart plotter. Actually if a stray white light appeared and did not show up on the AIS my first assumption would be that it was a fishing boat. We would be unlikely to run close along a coastline where depths were OK for anchoring.
On the other hand, if we are feeling our way into a bay to anchor ourselves, it is comforting to see the strobes, coz it saves craning your neck to spot a feeble anchor light in amongst the stars.

 

[Graham376]

Although you are right that they're illegal if used without an all round white, lots of boats use them, as well as flashing coloured fishing net lights and you won't get any action to have them stopped, maritime police have more serious problems to worry about. They don't bother me, whereas dim garden lights do.

 

[sailaboutvic]

More and more use these lights now as well has having their all white anchor light on .
You fine people wil use all sort of lights , garden lights are common in Greece.
I have to say I find them a pain going into an unknown anchorage at night but they do make you take notice.

 

[john_morris_uk]

Surely the answer is for people to use suitably bright anchor lights at an appropriate height.

I agree that it’s not likely to happen.

 

[Talulah]

My masthead light has 4 connections. Earth, tricolour, anchor, strobe. The strobe isn’t really a strobe but the flashing anchor light. Ipso facto it’s anchor or flashing anchor. Not both at the same time. I didn’t bother connecting the strobe wire behind the switch panel but can see it’s uses. Imagine a bay of anchor lights. Returning in the dinghy it would be easier to pick out the one with a flashing anchor light.

 

[[3889]]

Not just anchor light variations that cause confusion. Some clown in a cat sailing off the N coast of Brittany with tricolour and deck lights on had me scratching my head trying to understand and locate a fixed green over an occulting green as the lower light disappeared behind swell. Why do some think they know better than thousands of years of combined experience that's behind the col regs?

 

[alant]

Firstly are flashing anchor lights legal?

Yachts sailing with flashing lights creat confusion. ...we had an instance off the west coast of Corsica seeing a white flashing light which we were unable to identify ? West cardinal? Turned out to be a yacht at anchor. Lucky the weather was good but if we had seen this in bad weather it would have added to the stress.
These lights must be banned. What is the rya and the various regulatory bodies doing about it?

What does the team think

No.
Nothing in IRPCS covers them.

 

[KellysEye]

>Firstly are flashing anchor lights legal?

They at not. The previous owner fitted a strobe light above the anchor light and we only used it once to scare off a ship that was getting too close, as soon as it was seen the ship turned.

 

[RupertW]

I find flashing lights irritating rather than dangerous in an anchorage - it's the garden ones that go from white to red to green that I really dislike.

 

[vyv_cox]

On anchor watch in adverse conditions they are highly annoying and distracting.

 

[Chris_Robb]

We spent the night alongside a small trimaran with full blown master head strobe. This strobe seemed to get to everwhere below. If I had a gun I would have shot it out:disgust:

 

[nortada]

Point of order

Lights that flash are not anchor lights. An anchor light is a steady white either at the masthead or towards the bow of the vessel.

Flashing lights are just that. Nothing to do with anchoring as manifest when the trips boats return down the Guadiana after a booze cruise, plenty of flashing lights but certainly not at anchor. ?

My position. When at anchor display the correct anchor light, plus any extras you may wish but have some consideration for you neighbours.

My pet hate. Vessels that arrive after dark and insist on anchoring too close. At times, in the interests of safety, we have been been obliged to up anchor and move elsewhere. ? ?

Or crank up the psychedelic disco. ???

 

[sailaboutvic]

Re: Point of order

Lights that flash are not anchor lights. An anchor light is a steady white either at the masthead or towards the bow of the vessel.

Flashing lights are just that. Nothing to do with anchoring as manifest when the trips boats return down the Guadiana after a booze cruise, plenty of flashing lights but certainly not at anchor. ��

My position. When at anchor display the correct anchor light, plus any extras you may wish but have some consideration for you neighbours.

My pet hate. Vessels that arrive after dark and insist on anchoring too close. At times, in the interests of safety, we have been been obliged to up anchor and move elsewhere. �� ��

Or crank up the psychedelic disco. ������

I strongly suggest if your pet hate is people anchoring close , is not to come to Greece then

 

[nortada]

Re: Point of order

I strongly suggest if your pet hate is people anchoring close , is not to come to Greece then

Thanks - Greece doesn’t feature in my sail plan.

Ps Wonder why my cute emojies didn’t load on your reply. No matter I enjoy rugby.

 

[OldBawley]

Re: Point of order

Here a different view.
Different because we anchor out all winter, last years in Greece and we move almost every day.

That is totally different than anchoring during sailing season or hanging on a fixed mooring.

We have been hit by fishing boats twice. Both times around supper time, both times with anchor light ( on fore triangle ) AND all lights on in the cabin. Our cabin has a fixed dodger ( doghouse with big windows, we lighten the sea in a radius of twenty yards. So no lack of light.
The problem is that fishing boats are often steered by one guy who is working his nets while powering to his fishing grounds. That guy has been doing that for decades, he knows every buoy, every mooring, every rock.
During sailing season he knows yachts will anchor, he is vigilant.
Out of season he is not expecting a yacht to anchor, it is then that accidents occur.
In Greece, most villages are build up on a slope. A mast head anchor light is useless when near a village. The light dispersers into the hundreds of lights on the shore. A white light at head hight over the foredeck is a bit better, a yachty would see it, the returning fisherman will not see it.

He is not looking. He cleans the nets he just hauled, giving the tiller a push with his foot after a quick glance over the steering house.
Flashing lights at eye hight over the water will be seen better, but the best is red flashing lights at eye hight. I know, it is forbidden, I prefer to disobey than to be hit again.

Nb. In both cases ( one Turkey, one Greece ) the fishing boat fled in the dark. The morning after I found the Turkish boat. Severely damaged, with pieces of his bow planks on our boat. The poor guy had not even money to buy shoes. Insurance, ???? no way. He said he did not expect a boat in winter in Didim.