Mast-Head Lights

[Steve Laume]

I always try to anchor in 15' or less. Sometimes I have to settle for deeper water but that is an exception. If you add in the height to the deck I figure I am usually in the 15 to 20 foot range unless there are large tides. If I am going to be staying overnight I pretty much always put out all the chain and enough nylon to form 1/2 of a snubbing bridle. This is probably way more than I need at times but I never worry about dragging.

If I am only going to be staying for a little while I usually let out three to one and then add a snubber.

So to answer your original question; five to one with 60' of chain would seem perfectly safe. Less than that would probably be fine 99% of the time. I just feel more comfortable with more rode and don't have to worry about the boat if I am on shore. All chain will generally allow you to get by with less scope. The exception to this rule is if there are extremely high winds and most of the centenary is stretched out of the chain. In that case you may be worse off with all chain than nylon which would have more stretch.
An exceptionally high tide that I did not anticipate would not be boat threatening. Maybe the anchor would even hold if someone dragged down on me.

Raven did ride out 50 knot winds while at anchor in Bermuda. They were not predicted and I was not on board at the time. I had taken a very long hike and there was no way I could have gotten back out to her safely. She rode it out just fine with the ground tackle I already had out. I lost my sun shade but she never moved. When I left in the morning, it was a beautiful sunny day and the VHF weather did not predict the storm for that day.

I just don't want to deal with dragging or even waking up in the middle of the night to increase the scope so I pretty much always put out enough for very bad conditions, Steve.

[Jim Walsh]

I must quote Robert Ruark "use enough gun".
When anchoring I agree fully with Steve's logic. I carry two anchors on my bowsprit ready for immediate use. If I'm staying for a short time in settled weather I use my 25# CQR which has 20' of 5/16 chain and 1/2 rode but at all other times, or if I am unsure of the holding ground, I use my 33# Bruce which has 92' (I actually measured it once ) of 5/16 chain and 5/8 rode. Peace of mind is very important and so is the preservation of life. It might just be mine

[Evergreen]

I would like to thank everyone for their responses and willingness to share their knowledge. Due to our future cruising plans (in more populated areas and foreign places) we have decided to go ahead and add a mast-head anchor/tricolor/strobe to Evergreen. We will let everyone know the final outcome and how it works out.

Personally I think the masthead anchor lights are useless in reality but we want to be absolutely sure to be within the letter of the law. Plus the tricolor and strobe are useful when going offshore as pointed out by the coast guard personnel.

Once again happy holidays and thank you to everyone. And an especially big thank you to the coast guard folks out there for the job they do.

Best wishes,

[Matt Cawthorne]

When I went up the mast for the first time on my 36 I was absolutely stunned that there was no anchor light. I put one in that winter, and was very unhappy with the incessant slapping of the wire on the inside of the mast. I tried foam around the wire, but after a few years the tape holding the foam fell off and the clanging was back. It turns out, however that the inside of CD mast sections have sail tracks. I re-ran the wiring, this time with sail slugs installed on the wiring bundle and there has not been a clang since. The biggest problem setting this up was the fact that the existing wiring for the masthead wind sensors used a hokey type of slug that got caught in the track. Once I finally cleared those, I ran into the welded joint at about deck level. The slightly misaligned tracks make that area a little troublesome, but it was still workable. The firmly held wire bundle also helps keep the mast wiring from interfearing with the two halyards that I converted to running internal to the mast.

Matt

[hilbert]

Matt, great tip for the annoying slapping of wires inside the mast.

I took possession of my boat in Fairhaven MA and set out for Baltimore. I didn't realize that there wasn't an anchor light until the first night in Point Judith Harbor of Refuge. It had been a long day with rain, limited visibility and small craft warnings. By the time I arrive, I was seasick, tired and preoccupied with a toilet that won't flush. Fortunately, it was late in the season and I was by my lonesome. The lack of an anchor light wasn't much of an issue until I arrived in the Chesapeake and felt more exposed to increased traffic. That night, I jury rigged a light to shine on an anchor sail. In that way, I was both visible and had the right of way over power boats.

Even with an anchor light on top of the mast, I would also consider using one of these closer to the water:

http://store.marinebeam.com/utanliwiduto.html

[Evergreen]

Been using one of those lights for years. Sailor Solutions sells an LED one that is really bright and low power draw. Love it.

[David Patterson]

Following this interesting discussion, I recall coming into Ganges Harbor (Canadian Gulf Islands) just after full darkness, last September. Currents out in Trincomali Channel had delayed my arrival just enough, even though I was motoring in aboard my CD25D. To my regret many of the boats in the anchorage displayed no lights, while the rest had their steaming lights on in lieu of a boom-level anchor light. Those masthead lights were lost in the background lights of the town. The very few useful anchor lights were welcome, but did not make up for the unlit or poorly lit boats. By clicking my handheld spotlight on briefly I was able to work my way to anchorage without totally losing my night vision. The point of anchor lights, to me, is not to meet regulations or to reduce liability, but to make my boat safe from people like me that night, entering an anchorage late. Two miles of visibility was not the issue. While a designated anchorage does not require a light, why not have one? Besides, there are fewer than 100 anchorages in the entire US "designated" by the Secretary of Homeland Security for such a choice (see asa.com article). A harbor master's or yacht club's "designation" does not count. The bottom line, of course, is does your anchor light make the boat safer? I'm grateful for the discussion on this topic. David

[Neil Gordon]

Complicated stuff... All we need to do is:

Comply with the nav rules
Not have our lights get lost among street lights or stars
Not display combinations of lights that might be confused for some other array of nav lights
Not too high and not too low
Don't get bumped in the night

Most mooring fields are not designated as exempt from the requirement to display anchor lights, but don't count on a boat that's stored on a mooring displaying a light.

Reasonable practice might be to (i) light yourself up appropriately, based at least in part on the nature of traffic likely to transit your anchorage, and (ii) consider where you're transiting at night, and how likely it is that someone might be anchored or moored in stealth mode.

[David Morton]

I don't know if this satisfies Coast Guard regs, but I found it very useful and brainless:
http://www.defender.com/product3.jsp?pa ... &id=988405

Comes on automatically with dusk, off at dawn, solar powered, cheap. Sits on my aft rail and is visible from my home several hundred yards away.

David

[Evergreen]

I have also used those for years and love them. They have improved with time and now stay on all night. Have one on the bow and one on the stern. Combined with hanging one it makes a nice triangle which is easy to pick out anywhere - even in the fog. I have found that if you apply a coat of stainless steel wax when you get them their finish lasts a lot better.

[Sea Hunt Video]

I do not know much about this stuff. Anchoring at night will be a learning experience this season.

In looking at USCG regs it looks like when anchored most of our sailboats are required to have one (1) white light with 360 degree visibility where it can best be seen from all directions.

If you light up more than one (1) white light with a 360 degree view does that somehow violate the USCG regs If there were an incident I can only imagine the field day the $#@% lawyers would have with this.

I had thought of just using the spare spinnaker halyard to hoist up one large 360 degree light and securing it so that it does not go "glang, glong, glang, glong, glang glong" all night long.

David M.'s suggestion is much simpler and easier. If it complies with USCG regs. I think it would be my method of choice.

[Steve Laume]

Those little, solar, garden lights are very nice. We have one that I put in our flag socket at the stern. Kind of a night light for the cockpit and helps to distinguish our boat at night when coming back from shore. It is certainly not an acceptable anchor light.

We had an experience that could have turned into a bit of an incident a few years ago. We were coming into Provincetown rather late at night while under sail. We were moving right along and eager to be settled in for the night so I held onto our sail for a good while. I told Liz to head up and steer for the bright light up on shore while I got the sails down. I was working away and keeping a general eye on things when I notice the "shore" light gaining a lot of altitude rather quickly. I called out a course correction well before we T boned the yacht with a mast head light but it goes to show just how confusing a masthead light can be with a lot of background clutter. We would have seen the boat much earlier if they had also had a light at deck level.

You can't have too many lights showing when at anchor and that includes dedicated anchorages, Steve.

[Jim Walsh]

I remember the recent past when you hung a lamp over your foredeck, period. Sometimes it was a fancy brass anchor lamp but usually it was a standard kerosene lamp everyone owned back then. I don't remember any pleasure craft (never say never) with a masthead light of any kind till the mid-seventies, and those were a rare sight. When Aqua-Signal first started marketing the masthead combination lights which included strobes you could tell who had the new boats or money to burn because some new owners felt compelled to leave the strobes flashing as an anchor light. Indignant neighbors pretty much put a stop to that. Now we are trying to comply with fresh USCG and COLREGS regulations intent with boats that were never originally equipped to do so. If you are updating your electronics and choose to add a masthead white light visible for two miles that's great. If not, just continue to use an anchor light (it would be nice to at least attempt to meet the two mile visibility requirement) which is hung high enough to be above the level of your deckhouse so if it is obscured by anything it is your mast, and even then only momentarily. Electric, solar, battery, is up to the skipper. I still see an occasional brass anchor lamp in use. They may not meet the two mile requirement, but they are still effective and lovely to look at

[M. R. Bober]

STARVIEW has a masthead anchor light. She had it when we bought her.

I also have one of those solar garden L.E.D. lamps on the pushpit.

Perhaps as important for being seen and finding the anchored boat in a harbor, I have wrapped the top of each stanchion with a 1" piece of SOLAS reflective tape. Quite bright in the light of a searchlight or flashlight beam.

Mitchell Bober
Sunny Lancaster, (A wonderful place to anchor) VA

[Jim Walsh]

I like that reflective tape idea, apply once and benefit forever with zero maintenance. If I remember correctly Steve has reflective tape on Raven's mast.