Fishing Victoria Forum

I'm after some ideas on lighting, specifically spot/flood for providing GOOD lighting in front of the boat when navigating. I hear mixed reports - some swear by led spots or led bars, some say don't use led because they reflect off water, some prefer halogen, others hate them. I know amperage is a big difference with led vs halogen, but I want to see what all you boaties suggest - based on personal experience, what worked for you, and why/why not.

background info:
Its for the hardtop 7.6m aluminium boat below, the plan is to mount forward facing light on the top of the hardtop roof. Not sure whether led bar, halogen, flood, spot, strobe, etc. Have also looked at the Narva remote controlled halogen lights too (as in these ones- https://www.partsales.com/details/autoe ... vQodY4wFwQ)

Again, I'd love to hear what you would suggest and why (or why not too!!)

[this is the boat it's for].......

Is there a power usage difference between the 2 globes?

Are you sure you aren't just posting a pic to make us all jealous!!!

Beautiful boat mate!

A boat of that size and cost just put a radar on the roof and be done with it.

Regardless of the type of light, where it is mounted is the most important thing. If you get any reflection on the deck you will not see anything.
On the coast guard boat our remote control spotlights on the roof are useless to see ahead as they light up the deck. We only use them to look to the side. If we want to see ahead we put a crew up the bow with a hand held spot light. For a permanent mounted light it needs to be on the bow rail as far fwd as possible. Our preferred method of navigation at night is lights out radar on.
I get out on a couple of cats that have a light bar mounted on the hand rail at the bow, these work pretty good and are handy on the bar at night. They give enough light to show up the white water each side of the channel. If you see white water in the channel it is time to turn around and wait for daylight..

re-tyred wrote:Regardless of the type of light, where it is mounted is the most important thing. If you get any reflection on the deck you will not see anything.
On the coast guard boat our remote control spotlights on the roof are useless to see ahead as they light up the deck. We only use them to look to the side. If we want to see ahead we put a crew up the bow with a hand held spot light. For a permanent mounted light it needs to be on the bow rail as far fwd as possible. Our preferred method of navigation at night is lights out radar on.
I get out on a couple of cats that have a light bar mounted on the hand rail at the bow, these work pretty good and are handy on the bar at night. They give enough light to show up the white water each side of the channel. If you see white water in the channel it is time to turn around and wait for daylight..

This, if you mount the forward facing light on the roof, my guess is it will light up the bow and you will see literally nothing else. I used to prefer the lights off altogether (aside from nav lights obviously) at night, than have the light on the lit up the bow, as your eyes adjusted.We now have lights mounted forward of the bow (either on the front of the gunnel or the bow rail would work) and they are pretty good for lighting up channel markers, etc, but unless you have some crazy flood lights or something, its never like having your headlights on in the car. I do like the new lights tho for lighting up markers, and for peice of mind in case there is some moron with no lights on out and about that you would struggle to see otherwise.

smile0784 wrote:Is there a power usage difference between the 2 globes?

What do you mean by "difference between the 2 globes"? If you mean led vs halogen, then yes there is a MASSIVE difference in power usage.

yepi'mon wrote:Are you sure you aren't just posting a pic to make us all jealous!!!

Beautiful boat mate!

No, this is the actual boat - its still in final building stage at the moment - getting its motors and electronics fitted.

ducky wrote:A boat of that size and cost just put a radar on the roof and be done with it.

That is the plan in a few months down the track. Looking at the 4G radars. However, nothing still beats good light when crossing bars at night time in my opinion.

re-tyred wrote:...our remote control spotlights on the roof are useless to see ahead as they light up the deck. We only use them to look to the side. If we want to see ahead we put a crew up the bow with a hand held spot light. For a permanent mounted light it needs to be on the bow rail as far fwd as possible. Our preferred method of navigation at night is lights out radar on.
I get out on a couple of cats that have a light bar mounted on the hand rail at the bow, these work pretty good and are handy on the bar at night. They give enough light to show up the white water each side of the channel. If you see white water in the channel it is time to turn around and wait for daylight..

That's what I feared about having them mounted on the roof! It will be useless if it is going to light up the deck. I just am thinking its kind of going to look U G L Y having a light/lightbar mounted at the stern of our boat, hmmm. :down: I couldn't agree more about Lakes Entrance bar! -- If its white, don't go there!!!

Scraglor wrote:...and for peice of mind in case there is some moron with no lights on out and about that you would struggle to see otherwise.

Yeah, thats the worry, hopefully the radar will sort out that one. Mind you, crossing the bar, I also like to avoid hitting the crazy seals that seem to enjoy monopolizing the bar entrance!!!

I have only ever hit one seal. That was on the coast guard jetski. I was gunning it to get in front of a wave that was about to break and a seal popped up a couple of meters in front of me. There was a loud clunk and the seal took off. It seemed ok, but I bet it had a headache.
On the radar thing, this was my trade for 30 years. You can't beat the Broadband radar for good short range discrimination. That is, picking small targets and displaying them clearly. The small domes have the target discrimination of a large open scanner radar, they do not have the range but that is of no consequence on a small vessel. You will mostly operate it on 1-2nm range when picking your way through channels and traffic at night or in the fog, broadband is ideal for that.
One thing I always say to people with radar is operate it during the day, so that you get used to what things look like. Then at night time you understand it

This is what I have on my boat 6 led's 2 straight ahead 2 30 degrees left 2 right lights up my bow rail a treat. It is ok when going slow lights up reflective channel markers 50 mt away no problems but not the best for water conditions when travelling at speed. One thing it does do is make dickheads during snapper season put their lights on they can see you coming.

That is great advice retyred I have been thinking of radar its on my upgrade list