Headlamps for yachts?

[Pyramid]

Considering Rule5 I would suggest that concentrating on a comparatively restricted patch of water directly ahead, would reduce your ability to retain ensure a proper look out, whatever your good intentions would be! Your line of sight, restricted and dulled by looking at a lit patch of water ahead would naturally be pulled back ahead rather than up and ahead and around. Dim lights at a distance would be unseen!
Just putting it out there.

 

[RichardS]

How big is the risk, and what are the chances of mitigating them in this way?

As you say, unless you are permanently standing on the bow of the boat and the sea is very calm I don't think the lights will help unless the obstruction is visible well above the sea level.

When crossing the Adriatic two years ago I was scanning the sea around looking in the sunshine with a flat sea (motoring as no wind) looking for dolphins when I saw a large dark shape just ahead of the boat - perhaps 50 metres ahead. I could see the sea splashing across the top of the object so took off the autopilot as we approached with my Son and I trying to decide what it was. Finally, about a boat length away, we saw it was a huge tyre, like the rear one off a tractor or earth-mover, which was just breaking the surface as it bobbed up and down. I steered right over it so it went between the hulls.

We certainly wouldn't have seen it at night with any kind of light and, although it probably wouldn't have done any harm to hit it, if it had been a submerged container it probably would have done so I should really have made a greater course deviation as soon as I saw the dark shape. However, it didn't look that big until we were right on top of it. :ambivalence:

Richard

 

[mm42]

Have a look at thermal imaging, I'm involved in search and rescue and we use a handheld thermal imaging camera for spotting body heat, we've also tried it at night and the image it gives is surprisingly good, even in fog, as most things other than water have a better heat signature, so even things like piers, jetties and other boats have their own signature that makes them stand out from the water.

 

[Kelpie]

I saw a large expedition-type yacht a couple of years ago which had something mounted on the pulpit- I think it was a long thin LED floodlight. It was ahead of everything else on the boat so presumably no glare off rails, rigging etc. I never got a chance to ask them what they used it for.

 

[Orla]

I had to check and see if this was posted on April 01st

Having a spot light available for searching is one thing and a good thing, looking for a mooring buoy, MOB what ever..

Headlamps, just think about it for a couple of seconds, completely bonkers..

 

[dom]

If one is lucky there is sometimes a big white spotlight high in the sky.

Even better its genset is funded by mother nature

 

[Lyndsey Doyle]

Good afternoon, thanks for all the wise criticism, it seemed like a good idea but now I can see it's a wrong'un
enjoy the sun LD

 

[Woodlouse]

Have a look at thermal imaging, I'm involved in search and rescue and we use a handheld thermal imaging camera for spotting body heat, we've also tried it at night and the image it gives is surprisingly good, even in fog, as most things other than water have a better heat signature, so even things like piers, jetties and other boats have their own signature that makes them stand out from the water.

Thermal imaging is the way forward for seeing in the dark. The hand held units are getting better but the bigger mounted units are capable of picking out the temperature of wavelets and ripples.

 

[prv]

Thermal imaging is the way forward for seeing in the dark. The hand held units are getting better but the bigger mounted units are capable of picking out the temperature of wavelets and ripples.

+1

One of my fantasy boats is a Nelson-style motorboat with a serious suite of all-weather electronics that I could never afford in reality. Looking at videos, you could drive a boat on a FLIR infrared camera in pitch black just as if it were daylight.

Pete

 

[johnalison]

I seldom see objects in the water until I am almost on them - and that is in broad daylight - so I'm not likely to do any better than ten time worse at night. I can see that a light might be useful when picking up a mooring or approaching an unlit pontoon, but I'll stick to my assortment of lights and torches for now.

 

[maby]

I seldom see objects in the water until I am almost on them - and that is in broad daylight - so I'm not likely to do any better than ten time worse at night. I can see that a light might be useful when picking up a mooring or approaching an unlit pontoon, but I'll stick to my assortment of lights and torches for now.

Indeed. The latest developments in radar from Simrad and Raymarine are giving us decent resolution at ranges of less than 50 feet and modern multifunction devices can accept video feeds from infra-red cameras, so these really should provide the close in night vision functions that most of us need.

 

[Seajet]

Do you mean infra red or image intensifier types of night vision ?

Infra red tends to give a black and white image ( one can select ' black hot or white hot ', or if shelling out it will be a colour display showing the temperature gradients, such as firefighters use when looking for bodies in collapsed buildings ).

What most people take as ' Night Vision ' is via an image intensifier - the green image seen in the movies.

This works by amplifying even tiny amounts of starlight to a viewable image; i used Harrier late generation expensive intensifier NVG's in a sealed off photo
darkroom - all lights out - and could see clearly !

Harrier pilots have an infra red FLIR on the nose feeding a display in the cockpit, and at the same time wear image intensifier goggles for looking around.

I haven't used infra red at sea - if as people say it might spot the temperature difference of a container compared to the sea - which surprises me - then it sounds handy.

Image intensifier night vision will be much cheaper though; it comes by ' generation ', 1st being the earliest & cheapest at around £100 for monocluars, but they still work surprisingly well.

2nd Gen will be a lot more, and 3rd gen probably still £ thousands, a lot of military outfits would be chuffed with 2nd Gen, Harriers ( America, Spain & Italy now ) are on at least 4th Gen now, money no object.

I plan to get another 1st gen monocular sometime but it's not high on my list - I've done quite a bit of night sailing but think one is still basically gambling relying on the odds re containers etc, no matter what kit one has.

Also bare white lights can blind early crude sets and their users for a little while.

 

[Woodlouse]

Do you mean infra red or image intensifier types of night vision ?

Infra red tends to give a black and white image ( one can select ' black hot or white hot ', or if shelling out it will be a colour display showing the temperature gradients, such as firefighters use when looking for bodies in collapsed buildings ).

What most people take as ' Night Vision ' is via an image intensifier - the green image seen in the movies.

This works by amplifying even tiny amounts of starlight to a viewable image; i used Harrier late generation expensive intensifier NVG's in a sealed off photo
darkroom - all lights out - and could see clearly !

Harrier pilots have an infra red FLIR on the nose feeding a display in the cockpit, and at the same time wear image intensifier goggles for looking around.

I haven't used infra red at sea - if as people say it might spot the temperature difference of a container compared to the sea - which surprises me - then it sounds handy.

Image intensifier night vision will be much cheaper though; it comes by ' generation ', 1st being the earliest & cheapest at around £100 for monocluars, but they still work surprisingly well.

2nd Gen will be a lot more, and 3rd gen probably still £ thousands, a lot of military outfits would be chuffed with 2nd Gen, Harriers ( America, Spain & Italy now ) are on at least 4th Gen now, money no object.

I plan to get another 1st gen monocular sometime but it's not high on my list - I've done quite a bit of night sailing but think one is still basically gambling relying on the odds re containers etc, no matter what kit one has.

Also bare white lights can blind early crude sets and their users for a little while.

I've only ever used first generation night vision kit which really wasn't much use on a boat I found. The range on them isn't brilliant in very low light conditions and the picture quality was also poor and difficult to focus.

Thermal imaging is great but the prices are similar to good night vision kit, probably more so, the advange of it though is it can be used in day light too.

 

[Seajet]

The Russian ' Yukon ' 1st generation monocular I had worked surprisingly well - until it packed up altogether and the supplier's guarantee was useless as they'd gone bust.

In the 1980's I tried the 1st gen kit then used by the Royal Marines, and it was truly dreadful, barely any use to man nor beast !

I've read that in the Falklands the Argentinian Special Forces night vision kit was envied, and it's easy to believe after the rubbish I tried.

So early gen stuff at least seems to vary hugely.

Another snag with early type infra red is presumably it requires the big red lamp, which would upset all the Colregs fans...

 

[mlines]

That said, I've seen some small speedboats with headlights. They are next to useless.

As a small speedboat owner venturing into foreign forum territory they are docking lights, not headlights. Useful for getting back on the trailer in the dark where they work well. At dark, at sea, the Mk. 1 eyeball combined with remaining ambient light I find is best. The only other place I have used them is on the river where the trees at night create very dark tunnels that have no light at all, then despite them not being headlights and not casting light that can be used directly, they do show anything floating in the water (branches, pub tables) by catching the light.

 

[dslittle]

If you have a bright white light shining forward it will probably obscure the Red and Green ( unless there is a lot of separation between them) so a ship 1/2 mile away and heading directly at your bow might see a white and assume it's a stern light

If that were the case what would you expect the boat heading directly into your stern to do???

 

[LittleSister]

Good evening, why don't yachts have headlamps like vehicles?

Have you ever had your spiritual enjoyment of a night run undermined by imagining what it would be like if the boat sailed on to a box? I certainly have and will again probly, perhaps I'm too imaginative? It can't just be me surely

I agree with most of the reasons against given above, though wouldn't express them quite as firmly. Try it out and see how yuou get on, but I find even the sidelights mounted on the pulpit annoying and harmful to night vision, and much prefer masthead lights when appropriate.

The key technique, I find, is to time your night passages, when possible, to make the most of the moon. Makes an enormous difference, even if it's cloudy. I love night sailing with a moon, but am always a little nervous, like you, when hurtling along (well, c 4 knots!) on a very dark night.

 

[Woodlouse]

The Russian ' Yukon ' 1st generation monocular I had worked surprisingly well - until it packed up altogether and the supplier's guarantee was useless as they'd gone bust.

In the 1980's I tried the 1st gen kit then used by the Royal Marines, and it was truly dreadful, barely any use to man nor beast !

I've read that in the Falklands the Argentinian Special Forces night vision kit was envied, and it's easy to believe after the rubbish I tried.

So early gen stuff at least seems to vary hugely.

Another snag with early type infra red is presumably it requires the big red lamp, which would upset all the Colregs fans...

You don't need an infra red light for thermal imaging, it's an entirely passive system that works off the thermal radiation emitted by everything. You can get infra red cameras which work by using infra red light to see and they will work better with a big IR lamp, though the red light output will be very dim unless you use one of those infra red halogen heaters as your spotlight.

I think the night vision monoculars I've tried have been Yukon and Bushnells. They seemed pretty even in performance.

 

[mm42]

It's thermal imaging I use rather than ir.

 

[Neil_Y]

Biggest risk I've found offshore is keeping a look out behind you, even mid atlantic. Twice had large fast ships appear from behind. As to hitting partially submerged objects chances of looking at the right time and seeing it even with lights is remote, seeing as you will be doing other things like drinking coffee, nipping downstairs to make coffee, maybe taking a star site? if it's close to dusk, sail trimming, or going down to wake next on watch. Keeping a lookout offshore is never looking ahead and watching for obstructions. The real threats come quickly from the horizon or at least that's what I've found.