Nav Lights and Regs

[skodster]

The anchor cable gives another clue.

That's not necessarily true. The anchor cable can be masked from ahead or astern by the boats hull.

I laugh when I remember coming out of Dublin and seeing a 'motoring' yacht ahead of me, I zig-zagged to avoid this boat that seemed determined to bear down on me...only to discover that the crew were sipping tea in the cockpit. They must have wondered what on earth this fool was doing weaving around as he came towards them!

I couldn't see an anchor ball or an anchor chain!

 

[AngusMcDoon]

Anyway a masthead light is defined in the colregs and it isn't visible through 360

My masthead light is all wight and all wound.

 

[alan_d]

My masthead light is all wight and all wound.

No, no, that's not your masthead light, that's the light at the head of your mast.

The confusion arises because of Rule 21(a):

"Masthead Light" means a white light placed over the fore and aft centreline of the vessel showing an unbroken light over an arc of the horizon of 225 degrees and so fixed as to show the light from right ahead to 22.5 degrees abaft the beam on either side of the vessel.

It follows from this that (colregs defined) masthead lights are rarely at the masthead and a light at the head of the mast is rarely a "masthead light".

Perhaps that is why the colregs masthead light is often called the steaming light, even in the era of the internal combustion engine.