paraffin navigation lights

[martinschulz]

I am fed up with those electric navigation lights I have on my boat. To run them while sailing they draw from my batteries and since I don't use the engine very often, but like to stay out even when it gets dark - I have a problem.

Now I know there are lots of paraffin-navigation lights to get even in brass, copper and/or gunmetal. But unfortunately they are almost always too big. What I need is a red starboard light and a green port light for wooden boxes on the shrouds and a white fore and aft light.

And since my boat isn't that big they shouldn't be higher than 6-8 inch.

I wonder how the people 50-60 years ago sailed at night. I am sure not all of them had electricity, especially not on the smaller boats (20-30ft). All the paraffin navigation lights I see everywhere are made for bigger boats, mostly as high as 12-15inch. Even anchorlights are hard to get smaller than 12 inch.

Any ideas anybody?

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[spark]

Having used paraffin nav lights I'd advise against. Refilling them in a chop is a dirty, smelly pain in the neck. The wicks have to be trimmed and the lenses have to be cleaned regularly or the lights are next to useless. I had a stern light go on fire in a gale in the Irish Sea one night and was happy to kick the damned thing overboard.

If you have a problem with your battery capacity why not try LED nav lights. They run on a fraction of the current of incandescents. You can get red and green from www.asap-supplies.com and I believe white ones are available from West Marine (or you can buy a white LED cluster from www.superbrightleds.com and fit it into a standard stern light).


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[Mirelle]

Pretty much agree.

I actually used them as the only navigation lights as recently as 18 years ago.

The very small sizes are unreliable and give out very little light.

The best are the Davey cone burner pattern but these have not been made for quite a few years.

I still have a 15" set on board as a reserve. No, you cannot have them!

Remembering sailing at night before the 1972 Colregs introduced the masthead 25w electric light for sailing boats, what I remember is that I never saw another yacht at night - as soon as the 1972 Colregs came in we started to see masthead lights! I don't think that there was any increase in the number of boats sailing at night - we were just all invisible!

My definite advice is to fit and use a masthead tricolour light; the 25w battery drain is acceptable and you will be seen. Use the port and starboard sidelights and a masthead all round white when motoring, when the current drain does not matter.

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[Peterduck]

I have converted all the nav. lights and my masthead anchor light on my 1917 gaff ketch to LEDs. It was so ridiculously easy to do and successful in its outcome that I wonder that more people don't do it. My P&S lamps are also on light boards on the shrouds. I wrote an article on the conversion for the VWBA magazine. If you know a member, you may be able to borrow it. I plan to convert all my cabin lamps as well.
I attended a talk some time ago by a skipper of a large Bass Strait ferry who said that from his point of view, masthead lights were at just the right height to get mixed up with shoreside streetlights where these were present.
Peter.


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