How to find an anchored boat at night
Issue 99 : Nov/Dec 2014
Normally when traveling from the shore by dinghy I have no trouble finding my boat at night . . . except, for some reason, in the Great Salt Pond on Block Island in Rhode Island. It’s a huge anchorage and, unlike in many harbors, few landmarks are visible at night. No matter whether I leave my masthead anchor light on or not, I have trouble finding my boat. At times, hundreds of boats can be at anchor there with their masthead lights on. Mine is just one in a huge constellation of stars. It’s actually quite a beautiful sight, but daunting if you have to navigate it.
Sometimes at night I use a hand-bearing compass, like the character in The Riddle of the Sands, and take a back bearing from the dinghy beach. I even have a GPS app on my cell phone, but I still have to spend some time mooching around in the dark in my dinghy trying to find my boat. It’s amazing how alike boats can look in the dark.
One year, however, a powerboat next to me had fancy colored underwater fishing lights that could be seen at some distance. Another boat had a portable lantern with a blue LED on it. That gave me an idea. Online, for abut $10 plus shipping, I found a set of 12-volt LED Christmas tree lights with a long power cable and built-in fuse. The string draws only a few watts, so it won’t kill the battery, and it’s possible to connect a bunch of them together to make a huge string of lights.
I wrapped the lights around the mast and boom. Now when I go ashore at night, I have no trouble finding my boat, once I’m in the right general area. In fact, if I try to turn off the lights when I turn in for the night, my neighbors complain that they can’t find their boats when they return late from carousing ashore!
Cliff Moore’s first boat was a Kool Cigarettes foam dinghy with no rudder or sail. Many years and many boats later, he’s sailing an AMF Paceship 26 he acquired and rebuilt after Hurricane Bob trashed it in 1991. He is the editor of a community newspaper.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
