Re: [Cal_Boats] this sucks!(Steve)

I remember a Key West race where we spotted a sailboat running in the northwest channel unlit. If memory serves they lost there entire bank and their charts. Good old days. Fun race, great times. Rich

In SF bay we have an annual fireworks event in May, sponsored by one of the local radio stations. google "kfog kaboom" for details. Point is: when you go out to watch the show at night, part of the spectacle is watching all the boats around you who are clueless. I have to say that I see more nav light errors on sailboats than motor-boats at night. motorboats are simple: running & steaming lights wired together, plus an anchor light. They usually have the right combo lit. Sailboats, on the other hand, often have a tricolor and/or deck level running lights, plus a steaming light on a separate switch, plus their anchor light. I see just about everything out there on sailboats that apparently either don't go out at night much or are just clueless: steaming with only running lights, steaming with an anchor light, sailing with an anchor light, Steaming with a tricolor, and sailing or steaming with both tricolor and deck lights, with or without the anchor and/or steaming light. Weee! Sometimes we forget to watch the fireworks, the show on the water is more compelling. I guess some people put on "extra" lights to increase their visibility. That's great if they're not nav lights. In high-density traffic areas like this, I think the best thing is to have your salon lights on, curtains open, and maybe even add some temporary battery-powered white "working lights" to your boom or cabin-top rails. West Marine and others have these nifty little clamp-on flashlights that have nav lights for lenses, meant for small craft or for backups. I think a couple of the battery-powered stern lights, clamped to your cabintop handholds or chicken bars, would be accepted as working lights and would do a lot to improve visibility from the sides. And have a good spotlight ready in the cockpit to shine (briefly) at an oncoming boat, or on your sails, to enhance your visibility. bw On 8/30/07, richard beliveau <ri… [at] yahoo.com> wrote: > > I remember a Key West race where we spotted a sailboat running in the > northwest channel unlit. If memory serves they lost there entire bank and > their charts. Good old days. Fun race, great times. > > Rich > >

That's right! And we had the lights of a city as a backdrop. There was no moon but still we spotted the guy and made sure we missed him as we passed by. This was only possible because we were traveling at a speed which allowed us the chance to adjust our course before a close encounter. Had we been going 45, it might have been a different story. Passing him was sweet as he turned out to be our competition. Too bad we couldn't put enough time on him to take the first place trophy as well as the physical lead. That was a good time. If only we had had a real mainsail with reef points when the wind piped up the night before and we hadn't had to drop it for 6 hours... Still, second place ain't bad for a boat with 30 year old sails! ~smile~ SMon richard beliveau <ri… [at] yahoo.com> wrote: I remember a Key West race where we spotted a sailboat running in the northwest channel unlit. If memory serves they lost there entire bank and their charts. Good old days. Fun race, great times. Rich --------------------------------- Luggage? GPS? Comic books? Check out fitting gifts for grads at Yahoo! Search.