Tricolour Lights

[Stemar]

Pretty much every yacht I see has one, and in the days of filament lights and dynastarts they were a very good idea, but now? Your three deck level lights use less power than that one filament light used to, and solar panels and alternators mean there's rarely a shortage of power.

Still essential, or one more inaccessible bit of kit to go wrong?

 

[RupertW]

Pretty much every yacht I see has one, and in the days of filament lights and dynastarts they were a very good idea, but now? Your three deck level lights use less power than that one filament light used to, and solar panels and alternators mean there's rarely a shortage of power.

Still essential, or one more inaccessible bit of kit to go wrong?

I like it as a backup - forward lights always get swamped and stop working at times you’d rather not go up fiddle with them. Even if that’s just a few times a decade I’d still rather have lights well way from spray.

Also on a dark night I prefer the view fore and aft to be unlit.

 

[Deleted member 36384]

A reasonable point. For the second time I have lost my Aquasignal Tri / Anchor with Quick Fit. All my lamps are fitted with LEDs so I am wondering whether to refit it or not, maybe just fit an anchor light.

 

[DJE]

The great weakness of filament lights is that they must be openable to replace the bulbs and if the seals are less than perfect saltwater gets in and they stop working. LED bulbs in openable fittings have the same weakness. I have replaced my deck-level lights with sealed-for-life LED fittings so I rarely use the masthead tricolour now.

 

[awol]

Essential? Probably not but for me the benefits far outway any downsides. No damage to night vision - yes, I know I could mask the reflections off the pulpit, but I can't mask the scatter from the waves or onto the genoa; illumination of the Windex - could be done with a torch; more chance of constant visibility with less danger of vanishing in the troughs. The only time that I use the bi-colour and stern lights while sailing is when I am likely to be in close-ish proximity to other boats - they are easier to see then.

 

[dunedin]

I have replaced my deck-level lights with sealed-for-life LED fittings so I rarely use the masthead tricolour now.

But the "life" of sealed Aquasignal LED lights, in my experience, isn't huge - had to replace both red and green nav lights within 10 years. And not fixable at sea, or indeed in our case easily at all (major hassle, had to buy expensive new units and v tricky rethreading wire through pulpit).
So fitted masthead tricolour as backup and for sailing in waves.

 

[Buck Turgidson]

My tri is perfectly serviceable and LED. My deck level stern light is neither.

 

[Rappey]

With the filament type tricolour I've found its the light fitting itself that fails due to uv degradation rather than the failure of the lamp.
My pulpit port and starboard have the same lamps inside that was fitted 38 years ago but the lenses on all my lights are now badly opaque and need replacing.
I have had to dismantle, clean and reassemble a few times over the years, or just give them a thump.

 

[Graham376]

Pretty much every yacht I see has one, and in the days of filament lights and dynastarts they were a very good idea, but now? Your three deck level lights use less power than that one filament light used to, and solar panels and alternators mean there's rarely a shortage of power.

Still essential, or one more inaccessible bit of kit to go wrong?

Why do you assume deck level lights no longer have filament bulbs? All 3 of mine do but 6 amp current draw is immaterial as they're only on along with steaming light when the engine's running. Tri-colour also has filament bulb but with only 2 amps draw for a few hours, why bother changing when batteries will be topped up in daylight?

 

[Stemar]

Why do you assume deck level lights no longer have filament bulbs? All 3 of mine do but 6 amp current draw is immaterial as they're only on along with steaming light when the engine's running. Tri-colour also has filament bulb but with only 2 amps draw for a few hours, why bother changing when batteries will be topped up in daylight?

I'm not assuming that all boats have LEDs, but I'm thinking about those that do. I've never looked, but I'd like to think that any boat launched in the last five or ten years would have LEDs everywhere.

My little Snapdragon does, but only because a bulb died, and the light disintegrated when I tried to take it apart. At that point, LED lights seemed to be a no-brainer.

 

[BabaYaga]

But the "life" of sealed Aquasignal LED lights, in my experience, isn't huge - had to replace both red and green nav lights within 10 years. And not fixable at sea, or indeed in our case easily at all (major hassle, had to buy expensive new units and v tricky rethreading wire through pulpit).
So fitted masthead tricolour as backup and for sailing in waves.

Out of interest: Which model were the failed AS lights?

 

[Iliade]

My tricolour blew off on the delivery trip home...

I fixed it, but have no real inclination to reinstall it as the lowers are alleged to be more easily seen and, with LED, the days of electrical parsimony are long gone.

 

[DJE]

But the "life" of sealed Aquasignal LED lights, in my experience, isn't huge - had to replace both red and green nav lights within 10 years. And not fixable at sea, or indeed in our case easily at all (major hassle, had to buy expensive new units and v tricky rethreading wire through pulpit).
So fitted masthead tricolour as backup and for sailing in waves.

When I bought the boat the side lights tripped the breaker every time I switched them on. So I took the covers off cleaned out the salt and reassembled them. Everything was fine for about a month then they needed doing again. The new ones are Hella Marine - we'll see how long they last but I'll take 10 years over one month thanks.

 

[Sandy]

Pretty much every yacht I see has one, and in the days of filament lights and dynastarts they were a very good idea, but now? Your three deck level lights use less power than that one filament light used to, and solar panels and alternators mean there's rarely a shortage of power.

Still essential, or one more inaccessible bit of kit to go wrong?

All of my navigation lights; tricolour and deck are LED. Far better reliability and the battery charges faster as I am using less power.

Only ever us my tricolour when offshore as it is reported that some crews are unable to lift their eyes more than 3 meters above the water line.

 

[LittleSister]

I prefer to have both a tri-colour and side/stern lights (plus a masthead all-round white for anchoring or as a <12m combined steaming/stern light).

I've mainly sailed small boats, and/or older ones with low freeboard by modern standards. The side lights are not far above the water, and likely to be hidden by waves & swell at sea, but they're good for in harbour and close quarters, as others have mentioned.

Like others, I also find the reflected light from deck level lights distracting and not conducive to best night vision.

So I'm all in favour of masthead tri-colours.

I've never had much trouble with the longevity/reliability of nav lights, but I did a lot of sailing with a friend who had many different boats, all of which seemed permanently afflicted with non-functioning or partially disabled nav lights, which got us into various scrapes. (FRED DRIFT ALERT!]

There was the time we were anchored by night, at my suggestion, Maurice Griffiths style - well off the coast but amongst the shoals - in the approaches to the Crouch (comfy when the tide is low, and very not when it's not!). Masthead anchor light (and the rest of them) not working (yet again). Every now and again a fishing boat, on its way in or out of the Crouch, would thrash past close by in the dark. I deployed a paraffin lamp, but the stiff breeze kept blowing it out. So muggins here had to stay up all night and keep re-lighting it, and/or shine torches (pre-LED days) to signal our presence to approaching fishing vessels.

There was the also the time we were leaving Calais at some ungodly hour of the morning, having got permission to depart from the harbourmaster. As we passed the harbour master's office the tannoy sprang into life with some garbled French we couldn't make out. I assumed it was warning, or chastising, us for showing incorrect nav lights (half of them weren't working (again!) so we'd had to 'improvise'). Then we turned the corner to find a bloody great big ferry coming head-on straight at us! We breathed in, squeezed between the oncoming ship and the harbour wall, and lived to tell the tale.

On another occasion, coming back from Brest to Essex in the bad old days when you had to tell the customs of your arrival and post a form . We'd stopped at Dartmouth, but forgotten to post the form (there was an ongoing domestic/health crisis aboard that was absorbing most of our attention). My friend's boat was rather unconventional in appearance (and the crew also, perhaps ). We'd been stopped by a Customs (?) RIB sent across from a patrol ship when we were crossing Lyme Bay, They wagged their finger about us not having posted the form, and insisted we submitted it promptly at our next stop. That was Brighton, where the domestic/health crisis came to a head, the skipper departed (leaving me to get the boat back to Essex - I'd never skippered anything bigger than a dinghy at the time, and suddenly I was in charge of a very heavyweight 39 foot long-keeler with a single novice crew to help me!), and once again we forgot to post the customs form! The next day was very misty, but of course the boat's nav lights weren't working. As we made our way along the coast towards Dover we'd shine a torch towards any vessels we spotted to signal our presence. There was a ship inshore of us we'd glimpse occasionally when the mist lifted a bit, so we shone our torch at that. Curiously, it was going no faster than us, so we had seen it on and off for some time. Eventually the mist lifted to reveal the ship was a Customs (or whatever) patrol ship - perhaps the very same one had followed us from Devon, tracking our suspect vessel that hadn't submitted its forms despite warnings, was proceeding in reduced visibility without lights, and signalling to other vessels by torch!

There were yet more 'adventures' springing from this friend's 'way' with nav lights, but I fear I will use up all of the YBW Forums' if I don't stop here.