Searchlight - use for MOB recovery?

[RJJ]

Hello. We have an LED searchlight, 1000 lumens. It's rechargeable and has c. 4 hours battery life.

Preparing for the ARC this year, we're required to have an extension cable so we can use on deck while plugged into the batteries. Not that it's expensive, but it makes me scratch my head...When would you want it switched on for hours on end? I mean,
- when there's shipping around, a few minutes is enough (or it's not enough and it's "happened").
- For MOB recovery at night, we'd be searching for the wee lifejacket and danbuoy strobes. Which will be much easier with night vision - and without a massively bright searchlight switched on. The searchlight will illuminate a small patch of sea and make it impossible to see anything else. (If not, then why bother with the strobes which are also required?).

What are they thinking?

 

[Alex_Blackwood]

Hello. We have an LED searchlight, 1000 lumens. It's rechargeable and has c. 4 hours battery life.

Preparing for the ARC this year, we're required to have an extension cable so we can use on deck while plugged into the batteries. Not that it's expensive, but it makes me scratch my head...When would you want it switched on for hours on end? I mean,
- when there's shipping around, a few minutes is enough (or it's not enough and it's "happened").
- For MOB recovery at night, we'd be searching for the wee lifejacket and danbuoy strobes. Which will be much easier with night vision - and without a massively bright searchlight switched on. The searchlight will illuminate a small patch of sea and make it impossible to see anything else. (If not, then why bother with the strobes which are also required?).

What are they thinking?

Perhaps they are thinking that you may want to be found!

 

[HissyFit]

Perhaps they are thinking that you may want to be found!

But RJJ's argument is that bigger and brighter is not necessarily better; a point I'd have to agree with. It is a fact of nature that a flashing light is easier to spot, but if you ruin the night vision of those onboard doing the searching then the likelihood of the casualty being found diminishes. I'd like to think that ARC have run trials on this, and not just gone with an 'it stands to reason' fallacy. Such a search light would definitely be useful in the final recovery stage, once the casualty has been located.

 

[TernVI]

If you're running something like the ARC and decide to enforce safety requirements, you can't listen to a hundred different people justify their choices, you have to simply tell them.

There are lots of LED products which over-c laim their performance. Tell people to get something with a 55W H1 spotlight bulb in it, you know what you're getting. It's alos got many fewer parts to fail in it. Switch, wire plug, bulb holder, bulb. I have one that's 30 years old, it just works, I've got a small pile of dead LED torches.

Searchlights are a difficult thing, sometimes you want a pencil beam, sometimes you want a broad spread of light.

 

[Refueler]

We had a MOB from a ship I was officer on, West Africa ... the last thing we wanted was any lights shone out from the ship .. except when an observer reported an object and we needed to clarify if was the MOB or not. Then the light was shielded and only on long enough to confirm object.
We searched for 2 days ... even tossed over an empty drum at each end of the calculated run where could be within ...

Sadly we never found him. Its one of only two Services at Sea I have been involved in. He was also a friend I had sailed with on a previous vessel.

 

[RJJ]

If you're running something like the ARC and decide to enforce safety requirements, you can't listen to a hundred different people justify their choices, you have to simply tell them.

There are lots of LED products which over-c laim their performance. Tell people to get something with a 55W H1 spotlight bulb in it, you know what you're getting. It's alos got many fewer parts to fail in it. Switch, wire plug, bulb holder, bulb. I have one that's 30 years old, it just works, I've got a small pile of dead LED torches.

Searchlights are a difficult thing, sometimes you want a pencil beam, sometimes you want a broad spread of light.

Fair enough and we volunteer to do the ARC of course, and in general I am signed up to the help/reassurance that the regs and inspections give us.

Equally, I like my rules to make sense. I guess I will ask them!

Not least, they don't specify a powerful/long-duration handheld at all. The reason we went for a handheld is that you can take it in the liferaft or the dinghy, which seems a significant benefit. A plug-in searchlight may be more powerful, but I still can't see what benefit the extra power serves, nor the ability to power all night long.

We are allowed a rechargeable LED, but it has to be chargeable on deck.

 

[anoccasionalyachtsman]

Is it perhaps a legacy from when battery torches couldn't really compare?

 

[penberth3]

Is it perhaps a legacy from when battery torches couldn't really compare?

I think this is it, rules written when 12V wander-lead lamps were the only thing around. Once it's there in print it never gets questioned or reviewed. I've seen a few similar examples.

 

[Rappey]

I can certainly relate to having dead led torches, but buy a high quality branded torch such as led lenser(german) and it can go through hell and back and still work and some make a 55w halogen look like a candle.
And another shameless plug for lidls (and probably aldi) led torches. For the price you could buy a handful of them.
I think if people are happy to trust their nav lights to led then why not a quality high power led light ?
I replaced a motorbike headlight lamp, h4 to a led. The difference is unbelievable.

 

[MoodySabre]

I've got an LED "box type"torch that floats so you can switch it on and throw it at the casualty. Bobs beam up.

 

[TernVI]

...
I replaced a motorbike headlight lamp, h4 to a led. The difference is unbelievable.

Details would be appreciated please! Thanks!

 

[TernVI]

TBH, I use my 12V halogen handlamp relatively often.
It's dead handy for load testing batteries!

Also used it for warming some epoxy/carbon fibre bodgery the other day.

 

[Refueler]

I replaced a motorbike headlight lamp, h4 to a led. The difference is unbelievable.

The LED m'bike driving lamp I have on my Mobo is for lighting up the entrance to my boat channel at night .... its amazing for such a small unit ... I'm considering buying more and using as handheld and maybe downlamps from the spreaders.

The single version is no longer via the seller but now they do twin packs :

2x 12V Universal Aluminum 4LED Motorbike Front Headlight Fog Light Silver | eBay

Finding LED stuff so good now - I am changing my cabin strip lights to LED. The power saving is significant.

 

[RJJ]

The LED m'bike driving lamp I have on my Mobo is for lighting up the entrance to my boat channel at night .... its amazing for such a small unit ... I'm considering buying more and using as handheld and maybe downlamps from the spreaders.

The single version is no longer via the seller but now they do twin packs :

2x 12V Universal Aluminum 4LED Motorbike Front Headlight Fog Light Silver | eBay

Finding LED stuff so good now - I am changing my cabin strip lights to LED. The power saving is significant.

Sure and that's a few minutes' worth, right?

 

[Gary Fox]

A plugged-in traditional 12v searchlight is fairly cumbersome; it stops you straying far from the 12v socket, or if you do there's a tripwire all over the deck.
The big ones use up a whole crew member, because you need one hand for the boat, and one hand for the searchlight, preventing the searchlight bearer to do anything else.
I have one, it gets hot as well, it's basically a car type bulb. Don't use it much, the power is hardly greater than a decent LED head torch.
The ARC sometimes looks like a long rigid list of ass-covering edicts, about equipment for which skippers have developed their own strong personal preferences, through experience.

 

[shaunksb]

The chances of it being charged at the time you need it are inverse to the severity of situation you need it for.

_______________________

 

[Gary Fox]

The chances of it being charged at the time you need it are inverse to the severity of situation you need it for.

_______________________

No, they sit in a charging cradle, so are always charged up. There is a wide choice, you can spend £20 in Lidls or £200 for a bombproof SWAT Team version. We live in the Golden Age of torches!

 

[johnalison]

Is it perhaps a legacy from when battery torches couldn't really compare?

Not just that they couldn't compare but that they couldn't be relied on to work for a few minutes. Although LEDs will clearly last a long time, it makes sense for the rules to ensure that an effectively indefinite source of light is kept on board.

 

[shaunksb]

No, they sit in a charging cradle, so are always charged up. There is a wide choice, you can spend £20 in Lidls or £200 for a bombproof SWAT Team version. We live in the Golden Age of torches!

Not all of them do and not everyone sets them up that way.

Thats the problem with making a set of rules for a large number of people.

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[LadyInBed]

Better for the MOB to have a strobe and PLB