Posted by Kurt Ayres on August 20, 19103 at 04:05:50:
In Reply to: Re: Lighting posted by Brenner on August 19, 19103 at 10:13:03:
At night, other boats tell where you are and which direction you are going by the position and visibility of your red/green and white lights. Blinking lights mean other things on the water at night. If I get the chance, I will try to look up the regulations about the "continuous" part.
As far as the "all around" white light is concerned: No matter where people are sitting in the boat, the white light has to be visible from every angle. If that means it has to be on the end of a 5' pole, then that is what is required to meet the regulations (and they do make them that long). Another option is to have "split" lights--a white light facing forward, and a second facing aft, so long as one of them covers any given point in the 360 degree circle around the boat.
As boat builders, we tend to be "free spirits," but the regulations exist for our safety and the safety of other boaters. Besides being a builder myself, I also teach boating safety classes, and the things I see on the water just make my skin crawl at times. People can (and often do) sit at the helm of a 60 mph speedboat and don't have to prove to anyone, anywhere, that they can operate it safely. Can you imagine what it would be like if the same thing were true on the highways? Would you drive if just anyone, without any training whatsoever, could get behind the wheel of a semi? At any rate, boaters don't seem to pay much attention to the nav rules, until a law enforcement officer boards their boat, that is.
Let's be as informed about the navigation rules as we are about good woodworking practices!
Kurt