Nav lights Tricolour Vs Deck

[Trevor_swfyc]

I have deck navigation lights on my mirage 27, port starboard and stern. When they are turned on the stern light reflects in the boarding ladder confirming it is on. The port and starboard I check by just walking to the bow. When on a friends boat coming back from Holland, at dusk he turned on the mast head tricolour. One hour later on channel 16 a warning was given by another vessel that a boat which I informed the skipper of was in our area with no nav lights on. One hour later it suddenly dawned on me it was us as we could not see the lights from the cockpit they were not easily confirmable as being on. Fortunatly he had deck lights which he then put on, the problem was found to be the deck plug. The question is what if the bulb had gone and he did not have deck nav lights. I for one will be keeping my deck lights I know when they are on and I can easily replace the bulbs.
PS We did check all nav lights before leaving Suffolk Yacht Harbour.
Stay Safe!
Trevor

 

[Miker]

I have a masthead tricolour but I also need deck level plus a steaming light when motoring. I have a switch which gives either one or the other. I am planning to put in another switch to disable the steaming light to give me a sailing back up.

 

[Dipper]

If you fit white or reflective tape patches to the underside of your wind indicator, you can see the reflection of your tricolour - it looks quite pretty at night. Miker is right about having the other red/green lights to use as backup and for steaming. The white steaming light needs to be at least 1 metre above the sidelights.

I dumped my deck plugs years ago because they always seemed to fail. I now lead the wires through a simple deck gland and connect them up inside the boat where it is dry. There is also less for the jib sheets to catch on now. You just have to remember to disconnect them if the mast is taken down!

 

[vyv_cox]

Every tricolour I ever owned was unreliable. The bulb contacts seem to corrode or move a little relative to the contacts in the fitting and the light goes off. When I climb the mast to fix it, all it takes is a little movement of the bulb and it's on again. Surely technology can come up with something a bit better than a system invented in the 19th Century?

My Hawk indicator comes with reflective tape on its underside and the light can be seen reflected in it.

I have removed all deck plugs to overcome their unreliability. I use glands, to which I always add a blob of sealant, and make all connections below deck in the dry. I have had no mast electrics failures, except the above-mentioned bulb problems, in the past 7 years.

 

[kingfisher]

Nav lights at deck level:

BAD
Recieves copious amounts of salt spray
When boat is heeled, one of the lights simply shines in the water

Good
Easy for check up

I prefer my nav lights 10 m. Except of course when the bulb flattens (as is the case now :-(((((

Obi-Wan
http://sirocco31.tripod.com

 

[rogerm]

While there is never a dead cert, especially in a marine environment, it is worth using silicon gel on all low current electrical connections. It is always a 'good thing' to make sure the connections are clean to start with and then wipe over bulb connections (socket & bulb) with the gel. On deck connectors fill most of the free space with the gel. Silicon gel never goes 'funny' ie solid or leaks away. It is also possible to get those little blue cable joiners with the gel already inside likewise for crimp connectors. Find them on www.cpc.co.uk if you can't find a local source.

Finally for someone with a little electronic knowledge it wouldn't take much to make something that would warn when the tri-colour (or anchor light come to that) had stopped drawing current for whatever reason. I would suggest a few turns of heavy gauge wire around a reed switch as a starting point.
Roger

 

[Guest]

For what it's worth fellow posters, theres a company in Rochester,Kent that make a small electrical panel which shows a yacht on it with small LED's in the position of all the lights so that if a light fails you can see immediately. it's only about 4 inches square. Very useful?

 

[Trevor_swfyc]

Thanks all very useful info.

When we have depth alarms, waypoint alarms, water in bilge alarms, engine water failure alarm, but no alarm for what could be life and death, the Navlights going out. The fact that they are available is interesting as I have not heard of them before thanks Peter.

Deck plugs are unreliable why are the pins not gold plated, OK I know it would be more expensive but even my Hi-Fi has gold plated connections and that used in the dry. Yes I agree through the deck is best but sounds like a problem for mast removal.
Thanks again all
Trevor

 

[Guest]

I've recently fitted a tricolour after a season with my Mirage 27(00) - the main advantages in my view are more visible at sea, less drain on the battery when sailing, and it avoids the stern light reflecting off the metalwork etc and illuminating the cockpit. I can just see if it's on when standing at the back of the cockpit, but I suppose that depends on how the bracket's fitted. Obviously, it's replaced by the normal nav lights close to shore or when motoring.

 

[Guest]

Regarding a previous post, the panel with the picture of a yacht with LEDs to show the nav lights is commonly known as a mimic panel and will only show which nav lights have been selected (switched on) and NOT if they are actually on. In other words it just confirms that the supply is switched on to that particular circuit, and that the fuse is intact (assuming that the fuse is positioned before the indicating LED). It will not indicate a blown lamp for example.

I have a switched arrangement which allows selection (switching logic) of 'Steaming', 'Sailing' and 'Anchor' nav lights. The arrangement also has an alternate 'Sailing' switch in case the mast head tri-colour fails.
I also have a small mimic panel which makes switching of the lights simple to understand. All this was designed and constructed by myself. (cos I was too tight to buy overpriced and in some cases sub-standard ready-made panels. They were too big for my boat anyway).
I would be happy to send circuit details to anyone interested but for any one not quite sure what I'm talking about.

'Sailing' Mast Tricolour (as already mentioned in other posts, this shines nicely on the windex)

'Steaming' White light half way up mast, bow bi-colour and stern white.

'Alternative Sailing' (Tri-colour failure). Bow bi-colour and stern white.

Since I trail and sail all light fittings were designed to be removable (avoids damage in transit and is less likely to be pinched when the boat is stored!) I used Bulgin Buccaneer plugs and sockets and so far I have had no problems with corrosion due to water ingress. (I did seal things up inside the plugs/sockets with silicon rubber compound though as a belt and braces approach.)
All light fittings were and are regularly sprayed inside with a product I saw at last years London Boat Show called 'T-9'. This is magic stuff! The springy copper lamp contacts (Berylium Copper) are as clean and bright as when they were new.



An Ron Beag

 

[chippie]

If your white steaming light is halfway up the mast surely it doesnt provide all round visibility, ie the portion shielded by the mast.

 

[Dipper]

The steaming light half way up the mast must be used with the white stern light. These two complement each other to give exactly 360 degree cover (in theory!) so that either one or the other is always visible (but never both).

 

[ParaHandy]

My tricolour behaved in exactly the same way. I reckon that it is the copper contacts which press against the bulb base? To make matters worse, the tricolour is just too high from a normal bosun's chair to see right into it. After several trips up the mast, I got seriously narked at this thing so made a little hook from copper welding wire and hooked it underneath the contact and pulled it up (what I didn't realise was that I hadn't switched the power off so fused it so got really cross and the top of a mast with P&O's finest swilling about isn't the place to be angry) and since then haven't had any trouble - but then that's only a year since.......

Oh and not having wind direction instrument, helm *has* to occasionally look at the masthead windex and he/she can't see it at night unless the tricolour is on. So, no problem?

 

[halcyon]

Have I missed something, or just lost the plot, the steaming light is only ment to be visible in the forward sector, stern light covers the rear sector.
In passing, bulb failure has been available since at least the back end of the 1980's.


Brian

 

[chippie]

No, halcyon as dipper pointed out You are correct. My confusion arose from a flash card which expressed it as a white all round light for a vessel under power at night, with an either /or option re the sternlight-mast combo. My silhouettes show the configuration you mention as a vessel under sail and power.
I dont know why I didnt think of my boat instead of the rote learning indelibly stamped in my brain.
My apologies for the confusion.


<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by chippie on Tue Apr 30 07:37:44 2002 (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[Guest]

Hi Chippie
I agree my half mast height white light does not give 360 degree arc of light. My steaming light isn't meant to be a 360 degree white light. My vessel is less than 20m and as such, combined with a bow bi-colour and a stern white, the white steaming light need only show light over a 225 deg arc. If I did not have a stern white light (135 deg arc) then yes I would need to have a mast top 360 degree white light.
The regulations allow several combinations but in essence I do indeed show a 360 degree white light. If you add the half mast 225 deg arc to the stern 135 deg arc you get 360 degrees of white light!
All my nav lights have been checked and double checked to comply with regulations.

An Ron Beag

 

[chippie]

Yes, it is optional which way it is done.
As an interesting aside, It seems possible that a mast mounted steaming light could have trouble with a portion of the light being shielded if the mast was much wider than the lamp itself. ie part of the rearward 22 1/2 degrees on each side.---

 

[VMALLOWS]

Vyv,
You seem to be very unlucky with Nav lights. None of mine have given trouble in 19 years. I do recommend a smear of vaseline or silicone grease on the contacts....preferably from brand new. Agree with comments on deck-glands and Hawk....pitty mine seems to be pointing more or less athwartships at present!