In article ,
says...

I am Tosk wrote:
In article ,
says...
In article ced8cd5d-d10e-4792-8c2a-
, says...
On Mar 21, 3:21 pm, Wayne.B wrote:
On Sun, 21 Mar 2010 09:49:22 -0700 (PDT), Tim
wrote:

Pick up a copy of the Inland/International navigation rules or read
them online - you can also download a copy in PDF format I believe.
http://www.amazon.com/Navigation-Rul.../dp/0939837498
http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/mwv/navrules/rotr_online.htm
Thanks for those links, Tom. I will be doing some studying. I suppose
the reason I'm asking all these questions about Nav. Lights is I want
to update my boat to better standards and make it as safe as I can.
I'd leave the lights alone for now as long as they are working OK
since there are probably other things that need a look.

Running at night is very tricky even for the experienced, and should
really be avoided when possible. Take it real slow, especially the
first few times. Everything that looks familiar during daylight
looks entirely different in the dark, and distances are much more
difficult to judge accurately.

Back in my sailboat days I ran literally thousands of miles in the
dark with no incidents and no radar but with a few close calls, some
way too close for comfort. Now that I've gotten used to running with
radar at night I would never operate without it if at all possible.

Even radar is not perfect however. Off the coast of the Dominican
Republic we were surprised several times by small wooden fishing
skiffs operating 12 or more miles offshore with no lights and no
radatr
image at all. They are totally invisible until you are almost on
them, even in daylight. They would see us however and either yell or
shine a light at us, not a really satisfactory way of navigating.
That's one of my reasons for recommending a good radar reflector.
Wayne, I don't want to run at night, even on my wide Carlyle Lake. And
I dont' plan to, but I wan't my boat to be set up better'n spec.
Oh man, being out at night on an open area is awesome. Make sure your
lights are set up right like they said so you don't see them from the
cockpit and they don't reflect off of anything back at you. Then keep
the radio off, and always keep the big spotlight moving. If you have two
sets of eyes, and two lights, it's even better. Anchored is a bit more
complicated but if you set yourself right and keep alert, you are
usually ok. Again, I wouldn't do it without a couple of those million
candle power lights, hand held and moving around a lot.

Scotty

I should note that when I say keep the radio off, I don't mean
communication radio, I mean keep the tunes off and pay attention to what
is around you. One thing I learned was not to necessarily look out for
other boats, but look up too! One day I saw this star moving across the
sky and realized it was the top light of a tug, moving a huge barge
right at me. yikes.

Scotty

Good thing you didn't blind him with your spot light.

I doubt my little light flashing across his bow at 300 yards is gonna'
blind anybody. How big do you reckon those Morse code lights were on the
old WW2 ships?

Scotty

--
For a great time, go here first... http://tinyurl.com/ygqxs5v

hk wrote:
On 3/22/10 12:11 PM, anon-e-moose wrote:
hk wrote:
On 3/22/10 8:04 AM, hk wrote:
On 3/22/10 7:48 AM, Wayne.B wrote:
On Mon, 22 Mar 2010 06:14:35 -0400,
wrote:

On 3/21/10 10:46 PM, Wayne.B wrote:
On Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:09:47 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

All the ones in the marina have them at the bow.

Then you are at a marina with nothing but small boats.

What an ass you are, w'hine.

I take it we can we assume that your nav lights are on the bow also?


In a previous post, a question was asked:

"Aren't most nav lights on or near the bow of most boats???"

Your response:

"No."

How the hell would you know whether there are more boats with side or
otherwise mounted nav lights than combo bow mounted nav lights? As
there
are far more small boats than large boats, I suspect there are more
combo than split red/green nav lights on boats.

And aren't combos satisfactory for boats up to 20 meters long? That
would cover your old barge, wouldn't it? Nothing prevents you from
using
sidelights. Hell, I have bow-mounted, separate nav lights on my 21'
Parker. I had the standard combo light removed to accommodate my anchor
roller:



http://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...t=IMG_0434.jpg




You are a pompous ass, w'hine.






Yawn

Sorry, I don't pay much attention to anonymous assholes...like you.

You just did, stupid.

On 3/22/10 12:45 PM, I am Tosk wrote:
In ,
says...

I am Tosk wrote:
In ,
says...
In articleced8cd5d-d10e-4792-8c2a-
, says...
On Mar 21, 3:21 pm, wrote:
On Sun, 21 Mar 2010 09:49:22 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

Pick up a copy of the Inland/International navigation rules or read
them online - you can also download a copy in PDF format I believe.
http://www.amazon.com/Navigation-Rul.../dp/0939837498
http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/mwv/navrules/rotr_online.htm
Thanks for those links, Tom. I will be doing some studying. I suppose
the reason I'm asking all these questions about Nav. Lights is I want
to update my boat to better standards and make it as safe as I can.
I'd leave the lights alone for now as long as they are working OK
since there are probably other things that need a look.

Running at night is very tricky even for the experienced, and should
really be avoided when possible. Take it real slow, especially the
first few times. Everything that looks familiar during daylight
looks entirely different in the dark, and distances are much more
difficult to judge accurately.

Back in my sailboat days I ran literally thousands of miles in the
dark with no incidents and no radar but with a few close calls, some
way too close for comfort. Now that I've gotten used to running with
radar at night I would never operate without it if at all possible.

Even radar is not perfect however. Off the coast of the Dominican
Republic we were surprised several times by small wooden fishing
skiffs operating 12 or more miles offshore with no lights and no
radatr
image at all. They are totally invisible until you are almost on
them, even in daylight. They would see us however and either yell or
shine a light at us, not a really satisfactory way of navigating.
That's one of my reasons for recommending a good radar reflector.
Wayne, I don't want to run at night, even on my wide Carlyle Lake. And
I dont' plan to, but I wan't my boat to be set up better'n spec.
Oh man, being out at night on an open area is awesome. Make sure your
lights are set up right like they said so you don't see them from the
cockpit and they don't reflect off of anything back at you. Then keep
the radio off, and always keep the big spotlight moving. If you have two
sets of eyes, and two lights, it's even better. Anchored is a bit more
complicated but if you set yourself right and keep alert, you are
usually ok. Again, I wouldn't do it without a couple of those million
candle power lights, hand held and moving around a lot.

Scotty

I should note that when I say keep the radio off, I don't mean
communication radio, I mean keep the tunes off and pay attention to what
is around you. One thing I learned was not to necessarily look out for
other boats, but look up too! One day I saw this star moving across the
sky and realized it was the top light of a tug, moving a huge barge
right at me.yikes.

Scotty

Good thing you didn't blind him with your spot light.

I doubt my little light flashing across his bow at 300 yards is gonna'
blind anybody. How big do you reckon those Morse code lights were on the
old WW2 ships?

Scotty



Probably the best thing to do when snotty's light is flashed across your
bow is to open fire with fully auto weaponry. :)

On Mar 22, 11:13*am, wrote:
On Mon, 22 Mar 2010 09:39:07 -0700 (PDT), Tim
wrote:

Yes, on the few times I've run at night on the Lake, I've killed my
gauge lights so they weren't glaring back at me. even on dim, they
were a bother.

It helps to replace the bulbs with red ones. They do sell those peanut
bulbs in red. I put a resistor in the line to my gauge bulbs. The good
news is if you dim them they will probably last forever.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Mine are set up naturally 'orange' and are easy on the eyes at night,
but they do distract. I can dim them but it seems not enough to keep
from being annoying. I have them as low as they can go and will turn
them on briefly and occasionally just to make sure things are in
order, then off they go.

Sounds like you would like my gauge monitor idea
I have a comparator looking at the gauge inputs and reporting anything
out of range, before the engine squawks. There are green leds under
each gauge when things are OK and switches to red when it goes out of
range, along with a beeper
It has saved me several times when I had some obstruction to the water
flow and got me stopped before the engine got to it's overheated
stage. I have it set for about 150-160 degrees, the engine goes at
190-200.
It is really pretty simple. Just a 324 quad op amp (for 4 gauges) 4
pots and a bunch of resistors. I have a zener to establish acceptable
the volts level (triggers at anything under 12.5 or so).
It is basically just 4 voltage dividers.

Cool! I never thought of something liek that. I've used Murphy
switches before for shut down, though like loss of oil pressure or
excessive engine heat and I ahve one on my small boat. But I do like
your idea.

Do you have some sort of a schematic you could send to me, vial e-mail?

wrote in message
...
On Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:21:54 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

Even radar is not perfect however.

As a friend found out, it won't see a pallet ;-)


I thought I read somewhere about a "better" radar that would actually see
something like this... it had poor long-distance range though I believe.

--
Nom=de=Plume

On Mar 22, 9:45*am, anon-e-moose wrote:
Tim wrote:
On Mar 21, 11:42 am, wrote:
On Sun, 21 Mar 2010 09:54:04 -0700 (PDT), Tim
wrote:

On Mar 21, 5:30 am, Wayne.B wrote:
On Sun, 21 Mar 2010 05:01:38 -0400, I am Tosk
wrote:
I would imagine so, but to me it doesn't make sense to only be able to
judge half the boats length by having a 23' boat look like it's only
12.
I don't think it's as easy to judge length at night, despite where the lights
are located.
Judging length is actually not that important except with very large
boats like freighters, or tug boats pulling a barge. *One of the best
things a small boat can do to improve its visibility is to install a
radar reflector mounted as high off the water as possible.
http://www.defender.com/ProductDisplay?id=82874
Mounting can be as simple as suspending from a boat hook held in a
fishing *rod holder.
That is taken into consideration as well, Wayne. Thanks! *I also have
a clip-on white light that is fairly light and battery operated, *and
can be suspended from *the windshield if need be. The D-batteries are
down low so there is little weight up top. and it's actually about 3
ft. long so that would be at least 3 ft. above the windshield.
One of the most important things about nav lights, or any other lights
is that you should not be able to see them from the helm. Those folks
with that big "all around" white light on the stern are not really
serious about going out at night. You should have a stern light that
points back and a mast head light that points side and forward but not
in the helmsman's line of sight. It should be shielded below and not
reflected off the boat forward of the helm.
Otherwise it destroys your night vision and prompts people to want
"headlights" that destroy everyone elses night vision (besides being
illegal)
If you actually boat anywhere near a big population center it won't
really get dark at night anyway. Around the Estero Bay you can see
just fine as soon as you let your eyes get used to the dark. You
certainly can see something 100' away better than you would with a
spotlight. The spotlight only lights up the particular thing you are
looking at, not the thing you weren't expecting a few degrees abeam of
your light.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Pardner, I see what you're saying now...

http://content.answers.com/main/cont...boating/f0196-...

Also, over time, some green lights actually turn blueish. At a distance,
when lit they appear white.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I'm going to have to so something with both of them. the green seems
to be 'ok' but the red is faded so bad it's almost clear with a light
pinkish color. I found some LED side markers at an attractive price,
but the mounts are different so I might have to re-drill, but that's
OK. It's time to update!


Thanks!

In article ,
says...

On Sun, 21 Mar 2010 23:07:07 -0400, W1TEF
wrote:

On Sun, 21 Mar 2010 21:54:11 -0400, I am Tosk
wrote:

Again, I wouldn't do it without a couple of those million
candle power lights, hand held and moving around a lot.

Sound advice for ruining your night vision.

If you flash a water cop or the USCG you will get a lesson on the
proper use of docking lights. That may even be a monetary lesson.
Flash me and I will be hailing the cops to see if there is one around
to educate you a little.

Oh Jesus... If I called the cops on everybody who's light went across my
bow, I would never get any boating done... Besides, I am allowed to use
the light while rowing around in the coves and flats. IIRC, we just had
a thread on that But thanks for reminding me to beware the boatshoe
set

Scotty

--
For a great time, go here first... http://tinyurl.com/ygqxs5v

On Sun, 21 Mar 2010 22:36:00 -0400, I am Tosk
wrote:

Still keep the lights on though for
those hard inflatables that the yachties tend to give their kids to get
drunk and fly around in at night

What makes you think those are the kids? :-)

On Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:54:24 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:21:54 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

Even radar is not perfect however.

As a friend found out, it won't see a pallet ;-)

Yes, or a dock timber/log, or a mostly submerged shipping container,
or any kind of really small boat without a reflector. There was just
a big shipping container spill down here off St Lucia. They either
sink or float depending on the contents. We saw a few on the beach
going by three weeks ago.

On 3/22/10 2:31 PM, I am Tosk wrote:
In ,
says...

On Sun, 21 Mar 2010 23:07:07 -0400,
wrote:

On Sun, 21 Mar 2010 21:54:11 -0400, I am Tosk
wrote:

Again, I wouldn't do it without a couple of those million
candle power lights, hand held and moving around a lot.

Sound advice for ruining your night vision.

If you flash a water cop or the USCG you will get a lesson on the
proper use of docking lights. That may even be a monetary lesson.
Flash me and I will be hailing the cops to see if there is one around
to educate you a little.

Oh Jesus... If I called the cops on everybody who's light went across my
bow, I would never get any boating done...

But...you don't boat anymore.