New nav colours?

[zefender]

I'm not sure what the history is behind our green and red marker system. But, unless I'm missing something, it does appear to be the oddest choice.
Red/green colour blindness is very common and the colours do not contrast well. It seems a shame that perhaps the best colour (yellow) is used for special marks only, when maybe it might be better used to replace the green. Red and yellow - now that would show up!

Although I'm not a Mr Magoo, looking ahead a few years, maybe I might start to struggle. My sister is colour blind and can't tell one from the other. The different shapes help, but thats a more difficult thing for novice crew to remember.

Yellow and red I say. Any thoughts about why we have the two main nav colours we do and whether a change would be safer?

 

[Twister_Ken]

Trouble is that yellow is used in cardinals - I spy confusion.

What I've never understood though is why the red and (particularly) the green are not livelier colours. Moving the red a little towards orange, and making the green more lime than forest would help a lot.

 

[AndrewB]

Bring back the old system!

Pre 1974 (or thereabouts). Lateral markers were red and black, black shows up far better than green, both by day and at night. Green was reserved for wrecks.

In the early 70's Trinity House tried out a cardinal system in the Thames Estuary which was very good, with distinctive colours and large top-marks. Of course, as usual the Froggies got their own way with the IALA system, with miniscule top marks and a highly confusing colour system, that invariably makes all buoys into north markers once they have acquired a generous helping of seagull poo above and black slime beneath.

The Americans have boycotted the cardinal system, as well as implementing the lateral system the other way round (red right returning). Frankly, it is easier to use.

(PS A red-green colour blind woman? That is extremely rare, isn't it? And impossible you should not be red-green colour blind as well, with the same parents).

 

[zefender]

Re: red/green genes

I'm told she has 'atypical' total colour blindness (which actually means she's as blind as a bat I think)! So I'm not sure the old or the new system would help her much. Different parents so I'm not a sufferer fortunately. I still find it very hard to see the difference between the two colours from much of a distance though, which is more to do with the choice of colours than my physiology I think. Twister Ken's Orange and Lime 'sorbet' seems a pretty sound idea.

 

[Mirelle]

Where the colours come from

It is generally tought that they were copied from early railway signal lights - the first version of what we now know as the COLREGS dates from around 1840.

The disadvantage of yellow, on land, is that it is so easy to confuse with white - that is why traffic lights use red and green for the important bits and yellow for "warning". The same applies at sea since a yellow side light could be mistaken for a masthead light (yes, I know there are yellow lights specified in the colregs)

 

[vyv_cox]

Dayglo red and green

Many reds and greens on the Belgian coast are now dayglo orange and lime green. The orange is visible for a very long way, the green less so but still much better than British Racing green with an overlay of guano.

 

[tony_brighton]

Approximately 10% of men and 1% of women have colour blindness. Being a genetic defect, women can often be carriers without exhibiting symptoms; in my own family it seems to skip every other male generation on my father's side (so me, my brother and grandfather have it).

Aside from not being able to have gainful employment as a fighter pilot or train driver, I rarely notice it. When sailing I sometimes need to ask the other skipper what colour she sees a light/buoy as I am fairly colour blind. Green and white nav lights look very similar to me.

Red/green is the most common form of colour blindness - I have been totally amazed many times at how designer forget this. The easiest colour scheme to see is black and yellow; why don't they make isolated danger marks stripey in this scheme for example?

Re : traffic lights - red = stop, green/amber = go quickly.

 

[bedouin]

Re: New nav colours

The most common form Red/Green colour blindness is caused by a defect on the female (X) chromosome so cannot be passed on from father to son. It can however pass from grandfather to grandson through the mother. Passing from the paternal grandfather to the grandson would be very unusual (to say the least) so perhaps yours is not the usual kind.

On the subject of nav light colours - does anyone else have problems distinguishing green and white lights at a distance? I sometimes have problems picking out the starboard light on a ship on the horizon, whereas my wife seems to find it easier.

 

[zefender]

Re: my wife has a related condition

...in that when I'm driving along motorways, she can spot a shopping mall at an incredible distance. Sadly, by the time I can distinguish it, we've passed the exit

 

[Guest]

I suspect the real reason for changing black

Was that when looking down at a black buoy against a winter sea they are almost impossible to see. Now for you and I we very rarely looked down on a buoy that is a less where the top of the mast, but you rarely enter or leave a port at the top of your mast.
green.

What you have to understand is that the boys are not laid the yachts (even though we pay for them) they are laid for big ships whose bridges are far higher than our mast tops. Most difficult buoy pilotage for yachtsmen are plain sailing from the bridge of a even a small ship.

-{)>

 

[peterb]

Re: Where the colours come from

But the yellow lights in Colregs either flash (hovercraft, purse seine fishing vessels or submarines) or are shown with another white light (stern lights on tugs), so that the distinction from a steady white light is clear. See a yellow on its own, though, and it's very difficult to distinguish it from white. That's why the flashing pattern on special marks has to differ from any of the flashing patterns used with white lights on cardinal, safe water or isolated danger buoys.

 

[peterb]

Have you tried using colour filters? A red light viewed through a red transparency should be seen still at the same brightness; viewed through a green filter it should be almost extinguished. Vice-versa for a green light. But don't forget to get the filters labelled by someone with normal vision.

When I was demobbed from the Air Force, our local medical officer had just got a copy of the colour blindness test charts. He decided to test all the people coming through for demob. Out of the first ten, nine were red-green colour blind. Then he looked at the answers, and found that he was colour blind himself; the nine were OK, it was the tenth that had a problem.

 

[Rabbit]

Are we missing something. We seem to have the same views/problems. With all the modern technology thats available, why cant we have a bar code buoy reader ? nothing too exotic. Maybe a baby radar transponder look alike. Many times i would have been glad of positive identification. Happy new year.

 

[Mirelle]

But we don\'t pay for them!

Yachts do not pay Light Dues. Ships do.

 

[Guest]

Untrue but

Only ships and foreign ships at that pay light dues.
BUT
The vast majority of buoys aren't laid by the Trinity House, but by local harbour authorities who have the responsibility now to lay all buoyaged to the outer sea Mark. Most of their income does not come from commercial shipping or fishing but from yachting these days. Mind you it would be a brave harbour master to admit it!

-{)>

 

[tony_brighton]

Re: New nav colours

I'm probably not the usual kind. It would be nice to only be red/green colour blind.