Red Green Colour blindness suggestions

[Zippysigma]

I often sail with a guy who is badly red/green colour blind, as well as short sighted. This means that when sailing, he guesses whether bouys and lights are green or red. Fortunately he knows this and does not make critical decisions, but it means someone else has to be on hand to confirm the colours.

It is also holding him back from sailing solo.

How do other colour blind sailors cope?

 

[RestlessL]

Have you tried one of these ?

 

[benjenbav]

Different shapes. Not much help if he can't see them at all I suppose.

 

[andymcp]

I read about those things when they first came out, but they were down as specifically for distinguishing lights, not the colour of buoys which is where I have the most trouble.

I should probably try one in daylight to see if they do help at all.

 

[BobnLesley]

...for distinguishing lights, not the colour of buoys...

If its light enough to see the bouy, then you can distinguish based on shape; if its dark, use the Seekey to distinguish the lights.

 

[VicS]

As benjenbav says the shapes of buoys id them by day but the Seekey gadget should work with lights at night.

 

[aquaholic]

I am also one of the afflicted, what do I do.....

1, Try not to sail at night alone
2, If I do, make sure the wife has the helm.
If neither of the above are possible...steer ruddy clear of any lights at all

 

[elton]

A red tinted lens over one eye can solve this problem.

 

[Zippysigma]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will get him to try the filters somewhere during the day, as suggested.

At least that might help coming into the local locks on a green light, as well as at night.

 

[jordanbasset]

Hi, I also have red green colour blindness, as do around 10% of the male population, females are much less affected. I am affected only when the two colours are together, so for example red writing on a green background. I have no trouble distinguishing the colours when they are seperate, such as traffic lights and buoys. I believe this is the same with most who suffer with this problem so do not have a problem distinguishing the colours in normal situation. Obviously not the case with your friend.

 

[halcyon]

May I ask a seperate question.

When red and green are together, what colour do you, and if you had red or green by a yellow, would you see the colour ok?

Nice to know when designing displays for battery condition and controls, helps avoid confusing situations.

Brian

 

[jordanbasset]

Hi if seperate such as wires etc would have no problems. Sometimes if overlaid and close together, such as a wiring loom, can be a little difficult, but no great problem. Just use fingers to tease out wire I think it is and can tell very quickly if right colour.

In reality it has never given me any real problem and only found out I had it in the last 5 years when I underwent a thourough eye check. Must have had it before then but never caused me a problem and the optician was not worried about it -

 

[jbweston]

I sailed with an old friend of mine in the summer. I was surprised to learn for the first time (that I can recall) that he has red/green colour blindness.

I have more experience than him but offered him the cross-channel passage to skipper as a 60+ miler for his RYA logbook. He did it well - well-planned, proper records, everything AOK. I'd have been happy to go to sleep until he called me.

Anyway, the relevance is that he can quite clearly distinguish red from green lights when there isn't a confusing background or lots of different coloured lights. He had some real trouble with a Brittany Ferry near the Nab. But here is the point - so did I.

I have no colour blindness, and have passed the medicals for flying where they test this. But I had trouble deciding whether the ferry was giving me a red or a green or both. There were the usual restaurant, bar and cabin lights, most of them far brighter than the nav lights.

So as far as I can see, there are lights that are easy to distinguish and those that are hard. From the experience with my friend it isn't '100 percent colour-blind' or '100 percent not colour-blind'. It's more a question of 'it's getting more difficult'.

 

[jordanbasset]

Agree it is a continuum, with some affected hardly at all and others, as with the O.P.'s friend, a lot more. I was surprised when I was told I was affected by it as never really gave it much thought up to then, just thought it was like that for every one. Has made no difference to my life, only when I look back do I realise I just adapted in the very small number of circumstances that I was affected by.

Was surprised when told it affected 10% of the male population, but some would be so minor that like mine, that it has no real effect on their life. As I said previously only found out when I had a very thorough eye check (prior to laser eye surgery). Just for the record the surgery was a complete success in terms of correcting distance vision but did not affect one way or other the colour blindness issue.