Safety Tip:
Sailing at night.
Have you ever sailed at night? If you've never been out after dark in your boat I recommend you give it a try. However I also highly recommend you stay in extremely well know waters until you are comfortable with the dark. Entering a harbor at night is very difficult even under good conditions. The shore lights blend and hide any navigational lights you might have to navigate by. Always know exactly where you are and where your markers are! run slow and extremely aware. Lights on the water might be mistaken for shore lights. Shore lights can easily be mistaken for nav lights! Always use ALL navigational assistance you can! GPS, radar if you have it and charts all help! One evening we were headed to Oak harbor. Oak Harbor is a particularly challenging enterance at day let alone night. You enter a busy harbor follwing a channel that shallows at low tide to 4 feet. Then it narrows dramatically and makes a complete dogleg 90 degrees to starboard around a peninsula! Lots of bouys to follow. Even though the bay is wide, the dogleg is a blind corner and the channel is narrow! We've been there many times at day and at night so to us it was just another night enterance. As we made our way in the first leg all was good. We were mid channel and ready for the right hand turn following the markers. Our night vision was keen and we were watching for other boats. As we came around the peninsula to turn right we were greated by many more lights than I've ever seen on the water! WOW! What we saw was immediately apperant however it ruined our ability to navigate! I was suddenly on GPS and radar because of all the distracting lights! We could no longer make out a boat, bouy, or any other object on the water! I was very amazed at the spectical! It was cool. However it left me very dis concerted. Yikes. We went from complete ability to see to 100% full crew distraction in seconds. We were literally no longer on our best but instead completely distracted! I was aware but it was very difficult to focus on the task at hand of getting safely anchored! I missed the chance for a fabulous night photograph. THAT in itself should tell you how ruffled I was! LOL! However the next day I remember the camera and snapped this shot.
Happy National Ferris Wheel Day!!
Question:
Are binoculars usefull on a boat at night?
Please explain your answer.
Last edited by CaptainScott on Thu Feb 17, 2011 6:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
Yes they are but only if they are good quality binoculars. Not the cheap ones. The good ones, as in say in the $150 on up range they can gather in more light then is visible to the naked eye. Honestly now that I think about it the good ones I'm thinking of are in the $200 and up range.
Anyway with the good binoculars you should be able to see better and of course farther.
My binoculars are old, circa, late 1970's to early 1980's. They are really good and cost a lot back in the day, but I should upgrade them. Funny I've never used my binoculars more then once at night while sailing. They did help, but I bet new ones would do better.
I would say that you should have something under 7X or so and at least 50 mm objective for good night light gathering and steadiness of image.
Just a guess.
This is a guess from my old newtonin telescope days. Any binocular or telescope is a light geatherer. So unless there is a coating of some sort on the lens I'd say they are helpful at night.
One of my favorite times on EE was a night trip, albeit under power both ways. Mid November, plenty of stars, cool night. We just went a few miles down the lake to eat, then back, but it was great.
My only goof was planning on using two water towers on either side of the lake as a reference to locate our dock, and assuming they would have marker lights on top since they are near an airport...nope.
But I had figured a direct course back well enough that made it to the right no wake buoy anyway...
Yes I always have my binoculars within easy reach at night or dusk. If you come up the Hudson river at night without them the nav.aids look like red green and white Christmas lights flashing but with them you can determine which is the closest I also have a courtesy light below the helm with its own switch with a red bulb to preserve night vision for reading chart. Some day I will have a chart plotter but it will be a convience only and I always check and print notice to mariners and I also ran into an area where there was a fair going on and I had the same situation as Scott and you just go slow and every eye has to be 100%. Another sailor here had a situation where the County Park is lit up and he thought that was the lights he was seeing until rather close he heard 5 blasts of an air horn and it was a tour boat all ended o after he and his passenger got their clothes changed.
As already stated, A good pair of binoculars can be extremely helpful at night! Also as stated, good binoculars with excellent light gathering will allow you to see things you could not with your naked eye! Unlit markers, shorline markers, etc just might be visible with the binoculars! Also as stated, lit markers are easier to make out also. If you've never tried, take your binoculars out at night and look around! I do not recommend this in your neighborhood though! People might talk! But hey, go down to the water and see what you can see! You just might be very pleasantly surprised!
I keep a very nice pair in my nav station and they are focussed to my eyes! I also keep a couple of not so nice pairs readily available for friends and family on board. I've learned over time that for some reason folks will change your focus without asking. EVERYTIME! LOL! So . . . . I keep mine set aside and readily share the others!
I have Busnell auto focus and one of my friends call them possessed and they work real well and I also have a cheaper pair but at night I have the good ones at the helm.
