See the light – Is Red Really Best for Night Navigation?
Original article by Peter Swanson
Nautical curmudgeon and friend of Best4Boats Peter Swanson, recently published an intriguing article on his maritime muckraking journalism themed Substack Loose Cannon. The piece titled Night Navigation: Red Light, Blue Tape and Black Eye Patches challenges the conventional boating wisdom that red light is the ideal option during night navigation aboard our boats and provides an excuse for some of us to proudly where pirate style eye patches. From the piece:
“Ask an audience of cruisers to identify the optimal light for nighttime navigation, and most will answer that red is best. The question comes up from time to time in nautical Facebook discussions, and red is the answer endorsed overwhelmingly by commenters discussing how best to preserve ‘night vision.’
Night vision, otherwise known as ‘dark adaptation,’ allows people to see better at night but this advantage can be lost in a flash when someone is exposed to bright light, even something as innocuous as opening the fridge door. It can take up to 40 minutes in darkness to regain one’s night vision. Conventional wisdom has long endorsed red light as a best practice to preserve it, hence the little red bulb in all those old compasses of ours.
Problem is: The answer is incorrect, always has been. ‘Rig for red,’ as the Navy used to say, was never a best practice. It’s just that recreational boating followed the lead of the World War II military, which had actually misinterpreted the data.”
Swanson digs into military research that challenges contemporary assumptions about red light and offers alternatives including dimmed white light (that the military apparently uses these days), painter’s tape, and the classic pirate-style eyepatch. The full piece is available for you to read for free here at the link.
