Mast lights, What is allowded?

[sPk]

This probably isn't the best idea but I was contemplating modifying one of those solar/LED lawn lights and putting it on my mast as an automatic light for the night. After thinking about it more, I realized that if there is a white light at the top of the mast, then it is acting like an anchor light which probably isn't allowed when not anchored. So, can you put a white light on a mast and not have it confused as an anchor light? Is there such thing as a running mast light that is allowed? I couldn't find anything in the regulations that mentioned anything else than the anchor light & std. nav. lights. The difficulty with modifying the lawn light is that it is automatically on when it is dark and that may not always be appropriate... Thoughts??thanks,sPk

 

[gene]

mast lite

If you care about legality, the anchor lite(360 on top of the mast) must be used when not in an anchorage. The steaming lite is for motoring at nite. It goes about, hmmmm? 2/3 of the way up the mast and shines about 180ish or maybe a little more to the front. It's range coupled with the white stern lite range gives a total of 360 degree white lite visibility to another boat. In other words a white lite is visible no matter what angle another boat is from your boat. They are complimentary to each other. A 360 lite on top is not legal for steaming(motoring). From the side your boat would appear to possibly be a configuration of 2 different boats each with a different heading.