My wife is sick of me...

[Hermit Scott]

ah the glorious ICW!!! how long will you motorsail down there? and i m assuming you are leaving from corpus christi? if so to where?

and dude my sailboat did not have a mast light...used led light that are identical with yours (albeit a bit less fancy and expensive!!)

I got the light online for like $5. I made the lantern thing. The lantern glass was discontinued from defender or hamilton. I made the plastic lantern parts for free.
My investor and his ridiculously rich father in law updated their home entertainment centers. I get the 'old' stuff. I have 3 50' long high quality RCA jacks cables. I am going to make it a power cord for my little lantern and hook it to the battery bank. This is temporary until I wire the anchor light.
An example of the ridiculousness that is going on with these guys, he bought a dvd ripping and storing device that cost $150,000. It's called kalidescape. His projector was $20,000. What are these people thinking???

 

[Hermit Scott]

I bought this bulb on Ebay 2 for $14 with free shipping. I had to remake the old wooden holder to accommodate the larger bulb. I made it out of a two inch thick piece of nylon plastic I had sitting around the garage. Actually I had my 88 year old dad turn in on the lathe. He hadn’t use the lathe in years but boy was he proud. The bulb is way brighter than the incandescent bulb that was stock. What is also cool is that the new translucent nylon base also glows.

When I was 15 I had a remote control car that was kind of expensive($500). My dad made me some aluminum rims on a lathe for it, that took God knows how many hours. I sold the car like a month later. I was such an ******* teenager I didn't know how I hurt my dads feelings. I would give $5000 just to have those rims back.

 

[Bill Roosa]

Dead spaces in the light

Hey Hermit
While your improvisation is neat looking it appears to have several dead spots in its 360 degree coverage. Given that you are going to use a "point source" led it WILL have directions that you can't shine a light in. the arms will be lit up but they will not have near the required distance of the light proper.

I have used a Coleman lantern hung by a coat hanger from the flag halyard. Puts out enough light to walk around deck on. Runs all night on one pumping if you don't mind having a sore thumb. The tank lasts 2.5 nights.

 

[RAD]

Although I have an anchor light I rarely use cause I leave a Mega light clipped to the bimini so I can light up the cockpit and have it serve as an anchor light cause I too believe the drunken boater is not going to look up
when I replaced the bulb I found a LED replacement so I could leave this on for a long long time and not worry about draining the battery's

http://www.defender.com/product.jsp?path=-1|65136|992429&id=7961

 

[Steve Walsh]

Hermit,
I have used a Davis 12 volt (Mini?) Mega Light for years. Very low power consumption, raised about 15' off the deck with the flag (?) halyard that attach to the spreader. Lights the whole deck and I don't have to worry (as much) about the bass boaters that scream thru our anchorages at 60 mph at 4am not seeing the anchor light on top of the mast. It is also a nice backup the the anchor light.

 

[Ross]

Re: Dead spaces in the light

It was established during world war 2 that the flare of a lighted match can be seen for twenty miles. I know that a single lighted candle can be seen at a mile.
Mast head lights appear to me as stars. A light on the end of the boom or just a few feet above that illuminates the sails and the superstructure of the boat.
I tend to look for boats not stars or shore lights when I am coming into an anchoraged after dark.

 

[kloudie1]

I have been playing with a solar "path light" I got from Wally Woild.. $3 !! It makes a dandy end-of-boom light and stays on all night after a bright day.. It can't take two cloudy days in series.. but does ok with light overcast.. I have the top of mast light too, but the little solar rig does a fine job of making the boat visible and providing cockpit light.. The only thing it needs is a switch so it could be charged up and stowed without it thinking it is nighttime!.. Haven't gotten to that yet

 

[Peggie Hall HeadMistress]

Ok Kloudie...I gotta ask...

What in the world did you do to get yourself banished to the boat to sail the seven seas alone for a while?

Whatever it was, at least nobody's filing for divorce (yet)...which these days says a lot about both of you!

 

[Don12364]

If you anchor in an area where many other yachts also anchor closely then a light at the masthead is far less likely to be seen by other yachts than one hanging in the fore part of the yacht. e.g. from the jib sheets pulled tight.
Visualise another boat departing at 4am to catch a tide. The helmsman's eyes will not yet be properly dark acclimatised and he will be mostly looking horizontally to avoid other anchored boats. Your masthead light will be above his eye level.
I have done this on several occasions and sometimes missed the one with the masthead light - and only seen the hull just in time to avoid a collision.

 

[Hermit Scott]

Hey Hermit
While your improvisation is neat looking it appears to have several dead spots in its 360 degree coverage. Given that you are going to use a "point source" led it WILL have directions that you can't shine a light in. the arms will be lit up but they will not have near the required distance of the light proper.

I have used a Coleman lantern hung by a coat hanger from the flag halyard. Puts out enough light to walk around deck on. Runs all night on one pumping if you don't mind having a sore thumb. The tank lasts 2.5 nights.

excellent point! I am going to run those vertical arms through the router to make them thinner at those parts around the light. That should help but I don't know how much.

The glass is set in tight holes on the top and bottom, I am going to seal those with a rubber gasket to waterproof it so I don't get any condensation inside. I don't have any lights that aren't leds on the boat.

 

[txtowman]

Lucky you!!!! You will have a blast. If anything happens and you need help just give me a call and I can be down there. That light will be fine, If you hang it so it can spin it will be fine. Also I am buying the LED christmas lights to run up the mast on my boat so they are up and down the forestay and backstay. I think that will be obvious to others that I am sailboat at anchor! I have half a mind to come down with my C22 and follow you around for a week!
Good Luck and have fun!!! Sid