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Dangers of LED navigation lights

74K views 70 replies 35 participants last post by  TakeFive 
#1 ·
I just wrote this in response to another thread but it struck me as so important I thought a new thread was called for.

I was having a beer with my friend who skippers about 50,000 tons of bulk carrier and he made a very interesting observation. Twice they have had to sheer off hard - not easy for a boat that size - because the color of "white" LED mast head & steaming lights is almost exactly the same as a star. He explained, those lights tend to be weak and look exactly like stars from a few miles away. They are so small you do not notice them getting closer on a moonless night until you are right on top of them. This from a very experienced and careful professional seaman who also owns a lovely sail boat. He uses loads of LED's on the boat but not for his navigation lights. Next time in a dark anchorage look at the other boats mast head lights and you will see what he's talking about right away. Meggi once mistook one for Venus and was waiting for it to get a bit higher so she could practice with the sextant.
 
#37 ·
Alan-
"All manufacturers of LED running lights must have them tested to these standards, the same standards for ANY TYPE of bulb."
That's simply not true as written. I think you meant to say:
"All manufacturers of LED running lights sold for boat builders to use must have them tested to these standards, the same standards for ANY TYPE of bulb navigation light."

Folks who just sell to the public are not constrained by any requirement to conform to USCG certification. If I use a bass boat in some swamp lake inland, I'm not required to use conformal lighting at all, so there is a legitimate market for non-conformal lights. Or simply for cheaper lights, as getting certification is an expense. And of course, "bulbs" are never certified, it is the entire navigation light, bulb plus fixture, that are submitted and tested as one unit, and certified as one unit.
 
#39 ·
Folks who just sell to the public are not constrained by any requirement to conform to USCG certification. If I use a bass boat in some swamp lake inland, I'm not required to use conformal lighting at all, so there is a legitimate market for non-conformal lights. Or simply for cheaper lights, as getting certification is an expense. And of course, "bulbs" are never certified, it is the entire navigation light, bulb plus fixture, that are submitted and tested as one unit, and certified as one unit.
All boats that require navigation lights need to have navigation lights that meet the COLREGS definition & specifications of a navigation light. It is the law.

How do you know you have navigation lights that meet the requirements if they have never been tested???
 
#38 ·
Hi all

This is my first post and I think this is the most related topic I'd like to find out.
I'm intending to buy a tri color led navigation light for a 14 meters sailing vessel.
Can you please recommend one?

I´d like to but it through ebay or westmarine, can you please send me some good ones on those web pages?
Any special recommendation?

Thanks a lot for your helps.

Regards,
Mariana
 
#40 ·
Maine-
"All boats that require navigation lights need to have navigation lights that meet the COLREGS definition & specifications of a navigation light. It is the law. "
Yes. Except, not all boats are required to have navigation lights. The USCG only has jurisdiction over "navigable waters". There's plenty of water and plenty of boats that are not required to meet USCG regulations. And even in USCG jurisdiction, not all boats are required to have full nav lights.
So as I've said, there ARE legitimate markets for nav lights, for the boat owner who "wants" lights but is not required to have them. Some of those markets--like some of the Finger Lakes in upstate NY--are large bodies of water. There's no way to drive a boat from (at least some) of them to the sea, so no USCG jurisdiction, but a boater might simply want lights, on a budget.

"How do you know you have navigation lights that meet the requirements if they have never been tested??? "
You don't, if you are just staring at the box on the shelf. And, even if the lights have been tested and exceed the regulation, they still may not have been submitted for CERTIFICATION, which is something else again.
I can take a handful of parts and build a light that exceeds all USCG certification requirements, and I can have confidence in that by simply going three or four miles away and using my Mark-I Eyeball (yeah, they're the original series) to confirm the light is visible. Now, exact colors, you can quibble about. Pittsburgh Paint used to say they had 4000 shades of "red" and staff who could indeed tell them apart. I can judge "red green and white" well enough by eye. Exact beam spread, that's a bit harder, but still possible to do.

What it all comes down to is whether someone is concerned with "certification" versus proper function/performance. If you want to submit a cheap wallwart, one of those power transformers for a phone or radio, for UL/CE testing and certification, I'm told it can cost $50,000 a shot. (I haven't checked.) If I want to sell 10,000 pieces, that's an extra $5 added to the net cost of each, and probably $20 added to the retail cost of each.

So a lot of vendors will skip expensive "certification" routines, regardless of whether they have faith in the design and construction of their product.

There are indeed legitimate markets for uncertified products, that can be bought and sold at significantly lower prices. Personally, I'd say that the USCG/Colregs requirements for nav light brightness are substantially lower than they can or should be, for small craft. Easily exceeded in every way--including redundant bulbs so no one has to worry about "it just burned out", too. Certification is just one criteria for the buyer.
 
#42 ·
Pardon this new member chiming in (I joined because I'm researching buying a sailboat and you have to sign in to search), but I'm a pretty big astronomy buff. I don't really understand the original claim. LED lights are less like starlight than incandescent lights, not the other way around.

1. Stars aren't one singular color of white. They come in a variety of colors, ranging from blue (e.g. Deneb) to yellow (our sun) to red (e.g. Aldebaran). Some of these colors (especially Aldebaran) are very obvious to the naked eye. Incandescents bulbs tend to be stronger in the yellow/red range (why your indoor photos frequently look yellow) while white LEDs typically have a color somewhere between daylight and blue. That just means LEDs look like some stars, while incandescents look like other stars.

2. Stars are broad-spectrum, emitting light across the full visible light spectrum. This is also the case for incandescent lights. Fluorescent and LED lights are different. They inherently produce narrow-spectrum light. In order to produce "white" light, they have different phosphors (fluorescents) or doping materials (LEDs) which emit light of different colors. The combination of these colors approximate white, but the spectrum is never as even as an incandescent light. This is why incandescents are still preferred for artwork. They have what's called a high CRI (color rendering index) - their emission spectrum is flatter, like the sun's, and lacks the spikes which characterize fluorescent and LED lights.

3. The intensity (brightness) of the light drops off as distance squared. So regardless of type of light, there will always been a certain distance at which the light's brightness blends in with background stars. Having a brighter light shifts this distance further away, thus minimizing the risk of a collision. The type of light is irrelevant. All that matters here is brightness.

4. LEDs can be turned on and off instantly. They're frequently dimmed by making them flicker on and off hundreds of times a second. If the USCG really wants to make them easily distinguishable from stars, they should mandate the LEDs be strobed at around 25-50 Hz. At that frequency the light will appear constant if you look at it, but if you scan your eyes side to side, the LED will show up to your eye as a dotted line instead of a continuous streak like stars and incandescent bulbs. That would make it obvious the light is artificial.

5. Stars twinkle. They're so far away the light we see from them covers a very tiny angular width. Consequently, a tiny speck of interstellar dust or a slight disturbance in the atmosphere can momentarily cause the star to dim. Thus they twinkle. Planets and navigation lights do not twinkle.
 
#43 ·
Thank you for a well thought out, and reasoned first post!

In return; The SailNet search feature is virtually useless. I perform searches of SailNet by using Google. Enter your search term, then use the qualifier /site:www.sailnet.com

For example; a google search on "LED navigation lights" /site:www.sailnet.com should bring you here...

Oh yeah - Welcome to SailNet :)
 
#44 ·
For the average, recreational boater, this topic is so over-hyped.

When I think of how many recreational boaters I see on the Chesapeake Bay running with no lights, partial lights, or improper lighting configurations (anchor light on while steaming, etc), I just feel grateful when I see a vessel displaying some shade of red, green and/or white. While I can often tell the difference between and incandescent bulb and an LED, I don't flip out and call the USCG or the NRP because the color wavelength is slightly different from an LED.

As a sailor, I'm probably far more likely to be rammed by a powerboater because I'm running a masthead tri-color or masthead anchor light instead of deck-level lights vs. being rammed because my LED colors aren't "perfectly" aligned with old, incandescent bulb colors.

I installed colored LED's in my incandescent, Attwood deck fixtures, and verified that they could be seen over the proper arc of visibility. I laughed when I installed a USCG-Approved, AquaSignal LED, transom mounted stern light and observed that the color was more of a pure, brilliant white than the "warm white" of an incandescent bulb.

I really am done worrying about this. I'll take the lesser evil of running a non-USCG approved LED that displays the proper color over the proper arc of visibility vs. sailing in rough water at night and having an incandescent bulb blow out when I can't easily replace it.

How many sailboats do you see at night with dark anchor lights because they don't get up the rig to replace the bulb? I'd rather they display a slightly off-color LED that works 99% of the time, vs a blown incandescent.
 
#49 ·
For the average, recreational boater, this topic is so over-hyped.

As a sailor, I'm probably far more likely to be rammed by a powerboater because I'm running a masthead tri-color or masthead anchor light instead of deck-level lights vs. being rammed because my LED colors aren't "perfectly" aligned with old, incandescent bulb colors.
Keep in mind that if a powerboater did ram you at night his lawyer wouldn't be doing their job without investigating your lights. If they were found to not be approved lights at least a portion of the blame would be yours, if not all. And after that your insurance company, and maybe the powerboaters insurance company, wouldn't even have to write a cheque for your damage and injuries.

Trilights are useful well offshore but shouldn't be used in congested waters for the reason you give - people look ahead, not up.
 
#47 · (Edited)
Bubblehead pretty much nailed it. Basically, if your nav lights look like they're the right color, then they probably are within the COLREG specs.

The fact is the the specs (in COLREG Annex I, Section 7; Color specification of lights) are pretty broad. The main concern in most of these discussions seems to be centered around "white" and "green" lights. If you look at the specs in the COLREGS, and compare those to a CIE chromaticity graph, you'll find that any "white" LED with a "temperature rating" below about 6500K is fine. This includes all "warm white" and "natural white" LEDs. For "green" lights it's a little trickier. But, again comparing the COLREG specs to the CIE chromaticity graph, you can see that the acceptable range of "green" is pretty large. In fact, it dips quite a bit into the "bluish green" part of the CIE chart. So, if it looks pretty damned green, it's fine. Even slightly blue-green is probably fine. If it looks more blue than green (i.e., "greenish blue" on the CIE graph), then it's time to be concerned.
 
#50 · (Edited)
Guys,

Passing this testing is not as easy as some make it sound.

The main lab that tests these lights to USCG specifications fails MANY of them. I looked into building an LED anchor light and part of the costing analysis was to talk with the lab that does the USCG standards testing.

The testing is not that expensive when you consider what a worthy production run would be. Testing for a single anchor light was under $1000.00, about $925.00 IIRC.

This means that for a production run of 1000 lights it is adding less than $1.00 per light to sell a USCG certified navigation light. Outrageous? Not at all, especially to know your product meets the legal criteria for a navigation light.

If you submit a complete package of lights there is also a major discount on this testing. They will also stop testing at the first sign of failure, which just happens to be color when they are testing LED fixtures.. If it passes color, and many anchor lights fail because they are too blue, they stop and charge you only for that portion.

Remember that all these failures are lights built by companies who feel strongly enough they can pass the requirements to send in their fixtures and pay for the testing. They also test LED products for intensity over time. They have tested numerous products that meet the standards when first turned on but after a few hours they no longer pass when the intensity has fallen off.

You can now buy USCG certified navigation fixtures for not much more than a bulb only, so why not stick with something that keeps you known to be legal? LED navigation lights have come way down in price.

While I fully agree that ANY light is better than no light at all some of these lights I see out there can be outright dangerous. Pinks, blues, dim, cut off angles poor etc. etc.. Last summer I was working on a customers boat and noticed a "festoon" style LED bulb he had inserted into an Aquasignal Series 25 navigation light fixture posing a dangerous situation. Perhaps through vibration, or maybe he installed it that way, it had rotated around and was facing backwards. The incandescent originally designed for this fixture emits light 360 degrees so if it rotates there is no change in how the nav-light performs. These light fixtures have no reflector and the festoon was single sided.. It was not even facing the lens... Doh'....

Of course I do have a vested interest in this having had one of my best friends father killed in a boating accident where navigation lights were involved. I do not wish this on ANYONE. My friend and her family went though days of forensics testimony on the navigation light portion of the investigation & trial, not fun.....

When one of you guys has someone you know very well die in a night time boating accident I would be interested in talking with you after that incident about your views on navigation lights...

BTW this just happened last week, at night, here on Casco Bay. The USCG investigation is well under way. They hit so hard it literally blew the bow nav-light clean off the boat..


Hamilton Marine one of our local chandleries feels so strongly about not being involved in the liability chain they have this sign hanging right next to the LED lights where you can't miss it:





And this is the back of a package of an IMTRA LED bulb.


Seems no one wants to accept the potential liability for installing aftermarket LED's not even the people making them, or the people selling them. That says a lot to me....

I guess that; "The operator of vessel assumes all liability when using this product as a replacement for the original approved light source." means it is all on you to decide if using aftermarket LED's in existing fixtures is a worth while venture.

For me it is not, but your boat, your choice....
 
#53 ·
I'm sure that Hamilton Marine would much rather a customer buy a $100 fixture instead of a $10 LED array. The fact is the old fixture/new "bulb" combo is only "illegal" IF it doesn't meet the COLREG specifications. Those specs are pretty broad (see my post above), and consequently not too difficult to meet (given a little common sense).
 
#55 ·
"his lawyer wouldn't be doing their job without investigating your lights. If they were found to not be approved"
I'd hate to live in your state if they can do that. In my state, in most or all of the US, if someone told the court "Your honor, is lights weren't USCG certified" (and note, it is certification not approval that counts) all that would do is raise a presumption that they might be part of the cause. If there was no requirement for a certified light, that presumption could be thrown out as irrelevant.

And in every case, that presumption could be refuted by the simple process of testing the light itself, or another of the same light, and showing the court that the light may have been uncertified, but it met or exceeded the standards for compliance--since compliance, not certification, is what is required of pleasure boaters.

Really guys, if you're scared of lawsuits, just DO NOT own and operate dangerous machinery, like boats. Dump your boats, and cars, now. And make sure the sale contract ends your liability, just in case it sinks or explodes while the next guy owns it.

Lions and tigers and dragons oh my! No, really, that's just a salamander, and it can't fly or breath flames.
 
#56 ·
I was on watch steaming south through the Anegada Passage one night some years back, wide awake and sober by the way, on a freighter. Bridge height about 60 feet.
From the port bridge wing I saw a red or green light (I don't remember which) ahead and it appeared to be a mile or more away. I walked into the bridge to check the radar and out f the corner of my eye I saw that light pass close to the port bridge wing. I ran out and saw about a 40' sailing boat under full sail sliding aft no more than 10 feet from the ship! I had already completed a circumnavigation under sail and numerous transAts and TransPacs before this, so I was an experienced sailor and would not ignore a sailboat's lights or take them lightly.
Ever since that night I have been passionately against masthead tricolors and consider them to be incredibly dangerous. A single colored or white disembodied light gives absolutely NO depth/distance perception and no light at all shines on the water, boat or sails. Several times in Long Island Sound, I have had other boats' masthead running lights obscured by my bimini and thought the guy was an idiot, sailing unlit!
You all can do as you please, but nothing on earth would ever convince me to sail under one.
 
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#57 · (Edited)
You have a point but on a 40ft boat if you got really bad weather the chances is that the bow lights will stop to work or at least is what happened to me on several sail boats and several occasions, I mean those conditions where the bow (and the lanterns) are frequently washed by waves and subject to violent shocks. The filaments of normal lamps will not stand the punishment and even led lights can go out of position. Last time it happen to me was this summer on a f8 but with a much nastier sea, raised by a storm that had already passed:

The two lights went off and there is no way I could go forward to change the lamps, being the boat movement too violent.

Later, next morning I found out that I had a led on one side, that had just a bad contact (due to the motion) and on the other a lamp that had broken the filament.

I asked to the shipyard where I have the boat to give me a quote for a tricolor on the top of the mast. I agree that it is worst than the lights on the bow and stern but better than no lights at all and those on top of the mast are more resistant to bad weather: I will have the two systems and I will only use the mast tricolor as back up.
 
#59 ·
I've been following this post for some time now, and it is quite thought provoking., I am considering on replacing the anchor and steaming lights with LEDs by Marinebeam, which are said to be "USCG certified" on the website. Does anyone have any experience with them? They are about half the price of the similar Aquasignal 43 series, so I am curious. For the record, I was planning on the P & B stainless units and just adding LED bulbs, but based on the information here, I decided against that strategy. I need to buy new lights, it seems silly to buy incandescent units and convert them.
Thanks
Lou
 
#60 ·
Jeff is a great guy and stands behind his product. His new line (actually introduced last year) of USCG LED nav lights are well built and you get Jeff who will be there to support it. But no real need for an LED steaming light as the engine is running and you won't need a low power light. That said LED's last longer so they can still be beneficial even for a steaming light.
 
#61 ·
If you're going to do LED you need to get legit lights. Getting a incandescent fixture only to replace the bulb with LED is not the way to go as you still have the problem of loose or dirty connections. Get a solid state LED fixture that is all sealed and can't stop working unless it's actually faulty. There is no reason for not getting LED. And if your going to get a mast light and you operate in near coastal or offshore you need to be smart and invest in a commercial LED unit that is bigger and brighter than the west marine specials. I work on a 300ft supply vessel and I can tell you, the mast light is the first and sometimes the only thing you see on a sailboat at night. You'll pay for them but when there is a chance a 600 ft freighter might not see you because you skimped out on your running lights you'll be glad you bought the nicer ones.

Just my opinion, I don't halfass things that protect my life and whoever is on the boat with me.

Sent from my HTC6500LVW using Tapatalk
 
#62 ·
M S,
Thanks! That's what I was hoping to hear. The LED steaming light is more bout reliability, and not having to change bulbs. With a Yanmar YSM 12 running, the vibration stress on a tiny tungsten wire would seem to limit bulb life. I'm trying to get to a point where its all preventive maintenance rather than fixing 38 year old worn out stuff.
As a side note any opinion on Bury flex vs. LMR 400 for VHF co-ax? Based on your series, I started looking at the LMR for antenna wire. The bury flex seems to have about the same "numbers" but is designed for a harsh environment ie, underground.
Thanks again for the advice, and all the help you've given over the years.
Lou
 
#63 · (Edited)
i noticed while sailing out here in the biiig ocean that most sailboat nav lights are ambiguous at best.
yes that pricey pos on masthead is not visible or discernible at distances. looks off white at best. so do the close together bow lights.
as for anchoring--it just is not adequate to only have a masthead light.
i have moved my bow lights back to main mast, and 10 ft from water. wide and high. perfect. they even light the jib. perfect.
i use an oil lamp with fresnel lens for anchor light, accompanied by as many garden lights as possible so pangas can see me easily .

if you have problem trying to figger this out, anchor your boat in a decent sized bay. turn on your nav and or anchor lights. go 3 miles away and see what you see from your boat.
but that makes way too much sense for folks to do--they have to argue points unknown in reality.
i KNOW what my lights do. i can see them for miles away.
can you see yours and identify them accurately from 3-5 miles distance????
 
#64 ·
Old fixture, new bulb. We're right there, right now.
On the crossing from Grenada to Trinidad the port running light quit. Checking it out yesterday, we found some corrosion in the fixture, an Aqua Signal 43 series housing. The housing comes with a good gasket, but still the sea had entered and destroyed a 37.00 dollar led bulb.
I ordered the sealed led set and shall not again consider going "cheap" on something like running lights.
Anybody want to buy a green led bulb? Going once......
 
#65 ·
I've read this thread. Here are my thoughts. I really think there is no substitute for good LED nav lights on any yacht. They are just better, brighter, and outlast anything else. Lights with bulbs are prone to failure.

I do not agree with those who say masthead lights are no good. In my experience (over 40,000 miles) they can be seen from further away than lower lights, and are less exposed to the salt and corrosion issues. Deck level lights are very poor in any sort of a seaway, and the leeward one is often close to sea level!

If you are concerned about collisions while at anchor, consider this, re the "not looking up" argument. If you are one boat / mast length away, the light is 45 deg up, 4 boat lengths, 22.5 deg up, and in the normal range of vision. If you are paranoid, add some additional lights at deck level by all means - but good ones, with at least 2NM range, NOT solar garden lights - they have a really poor range.

We use a Optolamp Amazonia Mirim Tri Color lamp. It is an anchor/strobe/tricolor all in one unit, 50,000 hrs mean time between failures LED light that draws less than 0.15a at 12v. Many of our fellow cruisers have bought one of these after seeing our one. It has a built in light sensor, and will turn itself on at night, and off in the daytime. The whole thing runs on 3 wires. It is simply the best unit I've seen, which is why I resell it!

Have a look on my website if you are interested.

Matt
 
#69 ·
These also can come with a mount for a masthead anchor light. I find this tiny LED to be hard to see at when mounted on a masthead. I can't imagine it making much of an impact at 2 miles. This is from my own observation, so take it for what that is worth.

The same Davis light used in the foretriangle or above the cockpit, I find the reflection off the deck to be help with visibility.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that most of us anchor in places that the danger is not from a large ship that needs a long time to change speed/course but from small fast moving vessels that likely are not looking for mast head lights but looking to see what is in front of them in the dark.

My rule of thumb is light your boat up like a Christmas tree if you feel you are in danger of being hit. Davis lights, garden lights, lanterns, whatever works.

My mooring is in a "special anchorage" but I'm out there towards the end of the field with mostly empty moorings and at the edge of a shortcut used by pleasure/fishing boats. It's a no-wake zone that is ignored by most people, even the Sea Tow Yahoos get away with it. Late at night I hear the roar of engines going and I always wince waiting for the crunch. Hasn't happened yet, but when I'm on my boat I've started leaving lots of lights on.
 
#67 ·
I use LED lights exclusively for a number of reasons. They are more efficient and more reliable. But mostly they also cut through haze more effectively. There is an unmistakable spookiness to LED lights if you know what I'm trying to say. Maybe it's their phase or something. But I consider them far more visible than incandescent bulbs which are also more likely to blend in with back ground lights.

As far as avoiding collisions, hopefully everyone is using every available means than just looking for a light. And no one should be careening through an anchorage at night without a proper lookout on the bow.

At anchor I usually keep my spreader lights on all night too as the party doesn't stop until 6 in the morning.
 
#68 ·
I work in a company that develops LED navigation lights. In order to certify them you must pass inspection in USCG approved labs like IMANNA, and Col Regs AND ABYC A16 standard state quite clearly chromaticity and range, as well as angles. So there is no way a certified navigation light will have a different color as compared to an incandescent bulb. Durability, though, is another matter. UL1104 certified navigation lights (for commercial vessels) go through salt spray, impact and temperature testing to simulate aging. Certified navigation lights that lose power with time (low quality LEDS degrade with time) may be emitting light below minimum and this may impair visibility. So it's a good idea not to scrimp on navigation lights, LED or not.
 
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