Dangers of LED navigation lights

[hellosailor]

tj, if you see a blue solid light, you call the USCG and ask them if there are any military vessels on manuevers in the vicinity. When they say no, you just say thank you, we saw a vessel with a solid blue light and just wanted to make sure.

They should dispatch a response immediately, as blue lights are highly restricted in use. Odds are what you have seen is a green glass nav light that should have had a tungsten bulb in it, but some joker stuck a "white" LED behind it. Bad idea, the LED has to match the color of the lens in order to stand any chance of not being filtered or changed by it.

Considering that an LED steaming light should outlast a conventional one by at least 10x, using an LED steaming light will save you ten inconvenient trips aloft. Worthless? Maybe for some.

And the old post form the OP, that his friend does not use ANY LED nav lights because the white ones might be mistaken for stars? That's just illogical, why should the color of the white ones have anything to do with using the red and green ones? What, he's seen lots of red and green stars too? Again, there will be at least TEN TIMES that you don't have to change that bulb once you've replaced it with LED.

Ten times when you'd have to put down your beer and make a trip to the bulb locker. Hmmmm....

[msmith10]

In general I don't like Aqua Signal lights- my impression of them has always been that they feel flimsy and don't belong on a boat, but 2 years ago I replaced my incandescent running lights with Aqua Signal 43 LEDs. They are truly amazing. The colors are good and they are embarrassingly bright- I think they're the brightest running lights in the marina. I made my own mounts out of 1/4" aluminum angle as the factory mounts were worthless.

[smurphny]

I replaced my masthead with an l.e.d. last year. Did not even think about the fact that if in use, the engine is running/charging. Think I'll put the old, approved incandescent festoon bulb back in. Having an anchor light mounted lower than up at the top of the mast also sounds like a very good idea. In some spots, that high anchor light could certainly be missed.