LIGHTS FOR ROWING BOATS AND LAUNCHES

This article arises from four things really:

• It is obvious at the moment (Jan 98) that a substantial proportion of the rowing boats out on the Tideway at night carry inadequate lighting. (Stardate update: as of Feb 2006 things are better, but by no means good.)
• The standard of lighting is a regular subject for discussion between the Thames Rowing Council rep and the Port of London Authority (PLA)
• The warning letter from the Metropolitan Police Thames Division to all clubs dated January 1998 regarding inadequate lights.
• In various bulletins and notices posted at Furnivall from time to time I have covered most of the ground as I see it.

I felt it might be useful to others to do a quick job to put the existing material together and add a section on my experiences in getting Furnivall up to a reasonable standard. Public spirited or what? I have not done much re-editing of the material to unify it so it may be patchy in parts and it is a bit repetitious repetitious. The four parts were the rules, rowing lights, launch lights and type of lights. Each was originally one side of A4 but I have added in expansions as things occurred to me.

I know that this is not a terribly exciting subject, but it is important to get it right. Unlit and poorly lit boats are a serious danger to themselves and others. As ever the devil is in the detail and it is quite easy to get it wrong, as can be seen later.

DISCLAIMER: This guide is not perfect, but if you follow these notes you will be doing better than many crews out there, which has to be a step forwards. It is up to you what you do, these notes are suggestions only, the choice and responsibility is all yours. This guide deals with the Tideway in London, but it should be generally applicable to other waters, though it is up to you to check your local regulations.

How general is the problem of poor lighting on rowing boats on the Tideway at night?

Based on strictly subjective observations using a tightly controlled non-statistical methodology based on hanging over the wall at Hammersmith Bridge in moments of idleness and playing "spot the light" with what comes past it would appear at times that the majority of rowing boats and launches out there have inadequate lights for one reason or other. The main problems are roughly in order:

• No lights at all (launches are often the worst offenders).
• Wrong colour lights. Usually red ones as a stern light on rowing boats.
• Lights so dim you can't see them from any distance (usually the little LED lights).
• Lights obstructed from view by saxboards or the crew.
• Launches without full navigation lights.

2.0 THE RULES

The following are extracts (in italics) from the INTERNATIONAL REGULATIONS FOR PREVENTING COLLISIONS AT SEA, 1972, plus comments (in normal text). These are the rules incorporated into the PLA by-laws that apply to all users of the Tideway.

PART C. LIGHTS AND SHAPES

RULE 20 APPLICATION
...
(b) The Rules concerning lights shall be complied with from sunset to sunrise ...
...

Although rowers tend in practice to work around dusk or lighting up time. In most places sunset is the same as lighting up time. See your daily paper (usually) to keep track of lighting up time. In winter it can be less than 20 minutes from sunset to full darkness, in summer you may get up to an hour of dusk.

RULE 21 DEFINITIONS
...
(b) "Sidelights" means a green light on the starboard side and a red light on the port side...
...
(e) "All-round light" means a light showing an unbroken light over an arc ... of 360 degrees.

RULE 22 VISIBILITY OF LIGHTS
... so as to be visible at the following minimum ranges:
...
(c) In vessels of less than 12 meters in length:
...
- a white ... all-round light, 2 miles
...

RULE 23 POWER-DRIVEN VESSELS UNDERWAY
...
(c) (i) A power-driven vessel of less than 12 meters in length ... exhibit an all-round white light and sidelights.
...

Power driven vessels that do less than 7 knots can use an all-round white light alone. Strictly speaking coaching launches should carry side lights in accordance with this Rule as they do more than 7 knots. Full lights also have the advantage of offering a degree of redundancy in case one fails on you. Rowing vessels are specifically covered by Rule 25.

RULE 25 SAILING VESSELS UNDERWAY AND VESSELS UNDER OARS
...
(d) ...
(ii) A vessel under oars ... shall have ... a white light...

The rule envisages rowed tenders toddling around a harbour and someone flashing a hand held torch at approaching boats as required.

The accepted interpretation of this Rule on the Tideway is a fixed white light at each end of the boat giving a total of 360 degree visibility. The lights should be attached in front of bow and behind the cox so that they are not obstructed by the crew in any direction. Fitting bike lights to riggers is not acceptable as they are obstructed from certain directions by the crew.

Note that a plain white light has many applications on the river at night. It does not tell you much about the vessel carrying it beyond showing that it is there.

3.0 LIGHTS FOR ROWING BOATS

3.1 BASICS

• All launches and rowing boats must show lights after dusk/sunset. Do not wait for full pitch darkness before considering lights.
• Rowing boats should carry two white lights, one facing forwards and one facing backwards.

3.2 NOTES

1. Lights should be mounted on the hull, not on the riggers. Lights mounted on riggers using normal bike brackets are usually obscured by rowers or coxes from certain directions. It is important to get decent bracketry together in advance, then it is easy to mount lights well.
2. Normal bulb type bike lights are fine. LED items are better than nothing, but they are not really bright enough to stand out properly, some are too faint to be seen beyond a couple of hundred meters which is not good enough for the Tideway.
3. You should not use red or flashing lights. Still if that is all you have for a stern light it is better than nothing...
4. If you only have one light, it must face forwards. This should only happen if one light fails on the water, as you will, of course, always start with two... It is worth checking your bow light from time to time. Last year a Furnivall boat did most of a night outing with a failed front light and a good stern light. It would have been far safer to have moved the good light to the front.
5. If bow can wear a white top it vastly improves the visibility of a boat at dusk.
6. Note that even well lit rowing boats on the Tideway may not conform to the strict letter of the rules, generally because the bike lights used may not be quite 2 mile standard. However practically speaking standard bike lights with good batteries are perfectly adequate over the 500-1000 meter distances you can see on the Tideway.
7. The 180 degree arc of the lights is really a minimum, it is highly desirable that the bow and stern lights are visible together from the side to show how much river you are occupying when spinning or at crossing points.

FYI normal bulb bike lights will run for over 35 hours on a set of Duracells. Check that they look reasonably bright before you set out and you should be OK for a normal outing. Normal batteries take quite a while to fade out. If you feel at all dubious about them indoors, then it is time to change the batteries. If you go out at night regularly, keep a spare set of batteries on hand at the club to make this decision easier. Do not get caught out by only buying them in arrears, you will tend to put it off or forget until it is too late. Note also that battery performance gets worse as batteries get cold, so a dubious item in the club room will be really poorly after half an hour on the water in winter.

If you do get caught out after dark without lights or your lights fail then be very careful. Be aware that other boats may not be able to see you until you are almost on top of them. It is up to you to keep an extra special look-out and warn other boats of your approach if necessary, no matter who has right of way. Be especially careful at the crossing points.

• Launches should show normal red/green/white navigation lights, see Rule 23.
• However white lights as for rowing boats or slow launches are better than nothing.

4.1 PRACTICAL LAUNCH LIGHTS - 2006 update

For the last few years we have used a full nav lights set-up on a tin fish type launch for night outings. Details below. It is a bit of a hassle to get together, but once done it saves a lot of time during outings, you just clip it on and it goes. And it is totally legit.

• Mast is made from a bit of broken oar loom about 1.50m long. The foot rests in a hole built up on a sheet of plywood cut to fit on the floor at the back of the launch. It is held higher up by a clip that fits over the transom and around a carrying handle. The mast should be as close to the outboard engine as you can get it without impeding its swing. The mast is secured by a bungee cord.
• The top of the mast is plugged with wood (epoxy in) and a cantilever bracket made from an old foot plate screwed on and is used to bring the light to the centreline of the boat over the outboard. The wooden plug is shaped to tilt the light forwards a bit as the launch is usually about 5 degrees nose up when loaded. The light is a standard 360 degree white nav light (from Chas Newens). Wiring is normal 1A bell wire (from RS/Maplin) running inside the mast.
• The side lights are standard red/green nav lights (from Chas Newen) mounted on aluminium sheet brackets that fit into the oarlock holes using old rudder post rod. R pins through holes in the rods stop them falling out.
• The battery is a 12V lead acid gel job (from Maplin) that gives enough oompf for 2 outings/4 hours. Mounted with blue foam in a small plastic tool box (Maplin) with a waterproof on/off switch (Maplin) and piggy tail lead out through the lid.
• The charger is an intelligent job (from Maplin) that can be left permanently connected to the battery when the system is not in use. It will trickle and condition as appropriate. This device is key to the project.
• The switch on the battery box controls the lights, but the lead out is 3 way so that the charger can charge the battery irrespective of the switch position.
• The connectors are automotive sealed units (from RS), keyed, latched and all those goods things.
• To install the lights you clip on the mast and side lights, put the battery box up front as part of the nose weight, plug it in and off you go.

We found that placing the white light high over the outboard does keep it above the eye line if you look round and thus avoids night vision problems. The sheet brackets on the side lights again make them invisible to the launch driver. We have found that the level of lighting provided does not affect the steerer of the rowing boat you are accompanying.

The launch driver does need to remember not to drive under any trees or low bridges...

To make this succesful in the long run attention to detail is important. We had to make it totally dismountable as we stack launches in the boathouse and anything left on the launch will become wreckage in short order. You have to ensure that the charge process is simple to do: plug it in and forget when finished, unplug to use. The wiring and connectors need to be well made (grommets at holes, solder and shrink tube, not hope twist and pvc tape...) simple, robust and difficult to do wrong. Published instructions also help.

4.2 NOTES

1. Standard marine navigation lights consume quite a lot of current, so you will need chunky batteries to power them or engine power.
2. The clip on cylindrical battery powered emergency yacht lights that you can get at Chandlers are OK if you can get them to work well. They are often quite dim, especially if run on NiCads, as they generally run on one 1.5V battery. They usually have no on/off switch so you need to remove the batteries after use to preserve their life. Some brands are really quite appalling in internal construction and it is hard to get them to work reliably if at all. Generally fiddly. About £20 per set.
3. Due to the colour and sector visibility requirements, practically it is easiest to use standard marine sidelights of some sort rather than roll your own.
4. Most coaching launches do not have masts so you need two white lights to get the 360 degree coverage. Mounting the stern light so that the outboard motor does not obstruct it from some angles may require some thought. On the back of the motor cover is favourite. Keeps the battery warm.
5. Watch out for the bows up angle many launches take in use, your bow light must remain visible from ahead.

5.0 TYPES OF LIGHTS IN USE ON ROWING BOATS

Some information on the different sorts of lights you see used on rowing boats.

Halogen/Krypton bike lights to BS 6102	RECOMMENDED
Ordinary bike lights to BS 6102	RECOMMENDED
Torches	USE WITH CARE
Head band lights	USE WITH CARE
LED red lights to BS 6102	NOT PERMITTED
LED "safety" lights, red or green, flashing or steady	NOT PERMITTED

Halogen/Krypton bike lights are nice and bright, although some models are a bit directional. Some are rechargeable, see below. Around £13-£28 per lamp.

The ordinary white bike light with a filament bulb has a lot to recommend it: Cheap at £8-£12 per white lamp and easily available. Powerful enough. Ordinary batteries last around 30 hours and have a soft fade out. Usually good visibility from directly to the side, but check it.

I would specifically recommend the black Basta Danish ones at £9.99 or so. They are small, bright, fit the club light brackets and have a good sideways cut out in the reflector, you can directly see the bulb through an arc of 200 degrees.

The Ever Ready bike light with the angled lens design is useful in that it is easy to tape securely inside the V angle of your breakwater and still have the lens pointing more or less level.

Rechargeable bike lights seem to be prone to a shortish life (90 minutes on at least one type) and a fast fade out, which can leave you in the dark half way through an outing. I think it is because they are a bit too dinky and designer and the cells just are not big enough. Both NiCad and lead acid types seem to have the same problem. Try and always have them freshly charged. You need to be careful with these things.

Normal lights fitted with replacement NiCad rechargeable cells seem to be better.

Note that a 1.5V nominal NiCad cell charges to about 1.4V, so they do appear slightly dimmer than normal batteries from the word go. Alkaline/Carbon items when new are about 1.6V.

Torches are powerful, but sometimes too directional to be really satisfactory. You might not be visible from the side or front quarter, leading to accidents at crossing points and invisibility on bends or while spinning or manoeuvring. Bike lights are designed to spread light sideways.

You sometimes see head band lights, usually on coxes. They have the advantage of being easy to mount. Their drawback is that coxes, scullers and bow steerers do look around a lot (hopefully!), which might hide the light at the critical moment when someone else was looking. They also have the same directionality problem as torches, which makes the looking round problem worse. Best on coxes, not really good enough on bow or scullers.

BS 6102 red LED lights are bright enough, but the wrong colour. Usually paired with a normal or halogen white light at £17 or so a set.

So how do you get your people to take boats out with adequate lights on?

INFORMATION
Provide practical information on what is expected and how to do it. Use posters, bulletins, whatever works for you. Keep them fresh and maintained. I think word of mouth alone is not adequate to get the coverage, visibility, permanence and depth of detail you need, I'm afraid you have to go into print. At Furnivall I use bulletins on a board in a prominent position, the bulletins have been recycled to form the meat of this article.

Just a few recent real life examples of what can go wrong. In many of these cases I suspect that the culprits honestly thought they were doing it more or less right.

Lights obstructed by the boat

One example was a sculler who's forward light was a torch taped into the angle of the rigger and saxboard on the starboard side. This light was not visible from ahead anywhere slightly to port which meant that the boat was invisible to boats coming the other way on the fairway to starboard (i.e. where they should be), round port bends or to boats waiting at crossing points.

A less dangerous variation is the temptation to mount stern lights on the cross bar of coxless boats at strokes feet. The saxboards can then obstruct the light to the stern quarters. One of Furnivall's boats is prone to having this done to it, even though there is Velcro for an L bracket.

One coaching launch was seen with a torch for a bow light mounted inside the perimeter of the hull and low down, possibly on a seat. It probably was OK if the boat was empty, but moving with a driver and an outboard motor in the back the bows lifted up and the light was invisible from quite a wide arc dead ahead.

Lights obstructed by the crew

Common. Usually because someone has attached a standard bike light mount to a rigger tube. Bow then can obstruct the light to the other side even if it is visible over the saxboard. This can be dangerous round bends, at the crossing points or while the boat is spinning.

Another variation seen on a double was someone pinning a small LED light to their shirt for a stern light, which got obstructed by the arms during the stroke.

Green LED lights

Often seen used as the bow light. These lights are quite dim and very hard to pick out over 200m even when you know where the boat is. They get lost among street light reflections very easily. Just inadequate. And very common.

Also the wrong colour. A washed out green is not white.

Wrong lights

Weird sight, in one case I came across an eight with very bright pukka red and green sidelights. It also had no white lights so it was invisible from the stern. Rowing boats should carry white lights only.

A sculler was once seen heading towards Putney with a red light showing to bow and a white light to the stern...

Wrong light coverage

A launch with emergency sidelights just hung over the side apparently on string. In this case there was no sector cut-off so that they were visible from the stern. Perhaps just as well as memory tells me that there was no obvious white light showing to the stern. Note that the sector control for emergency sidelights is usually done by shutters on the mounting bracket.

The case of the vanishing eight. Turned out it was spinning in the middle of the river. The light leakage to the side once you got beyond 45 degrees or so from the front or back was very poor. Inadequate coverage to the side is often due to using torches for bow and stern lights.

A launch with very directional sidelights. From what I could see this was because the lights were proper navigation lights that had been mounted flat on their backs on the horizontal part of the side of the boat rather than sticking up on vertical brackets, so the spread of the lens was vertical rather than horizontal.

One scull was seen with a torch wedged in the breakwater pointing at the sky. Possibly good for illuminating bridges, not so easy to see from water level.