Lights on, but no boaties home

Our Coastguard Hibiscus Crew Chief dreamt up an interesting training exercise recently. He despatched crew around the marina at Gulf Harbour to do a quick survey of boat navigation lights. It sounded a bit humdrum to start with but the findings were an eye-opener.

The commercial vessels sighted (who are required to pass an annual Survey check), all appeared to have the correct navigation lights in all the right places, which wasn’t too much of a surprise considering passing the Survey gives them the right to operate commercially. But on looking at other boats around the marina, there was a frightening number of pleasure boats displaying incorrect navigation lights and some lights were located in some odd places on the boat. Now, we were simply looking at it from a safety out on the water point of view as displaying incorrect navigation lights causes confusion for other boats in the vicinity who are trying to work out which direction other boats around them are headed in and the size of the other vessel. Both are indicated by the type of lights displayed, their colour, sequence, and location on the boat. Watching incorrect navigation lights displayed on another vessel poses a particular problem for smaller pleasure boats who often do not have radar aboard to assist in collision avoidance and have to work out what another nearby boat is doing in the dark from its lights.

Boat navigation light requirements, stated in The Collision Prevention Rules, can be checked in the Coastguard Boating Education publication The Rules of the Road at Sea. The Collision Prevention rules differ according to the type of vessel you are on and the type of vessel you are meeting, it is therefore highly important that boats are able to identify each other correctly from their lights at night. It may well also lead to liability in the case of a collision if the lights displayed are incorrect or in the wrong position. So it isn’t rocket science to work out that it’s undoubtedly cheaper to fix the lights to comply with the rules, than to face liability costs after a collision if navigation lights are found to be at fault.

Boat lights are one of the topics covered in Coastguard Dayskipper and Boatmaster courses.

For further information on local courses contact Coastguard Hibiscus skipper Barry Norgrove on 021 545 177
Until next time, happy boating.