Sale of Navigation Anchor Lights
Looking for professional anchor lights for yachts? The marketplace offers a catalog with prices for anchor lights for boats from the world's best manufacturers of marine navigation alarms – Aqua Signal, Plastimo, as well as from the well-known distributor of marine equipment and accessories, FNI, recognized by sailors.
If you find it difficult to choose marine anchor lights for your yacht, contact experienced sailors – topRik experts. They will answer all your questions right away through the quick connection of the website or by phone. All consultations are free. You can also send questions to our email address [email protected].
Any vessel participating in sea or river navigation must be equipped with a certain set of navigation lights. Their choice is determined by maritime legislation at various levels of jurisdiction. This means that ignoring them is out of question. A novice sailor’s question may be: what navigation lights are required, how to choose and use them.
Navigation lights are special lighting devices used on ships, boats and yachts to ensure safe nighttime and limited visibility. These lights include position lights, side lights, masthead lights and other elements that help determine the vessel's position and movement on the water. Navigation lights are mandatory to comply with maritime regulations and safety standards, and they play an important role in preventing accidents and ensuring navigational safety at sea.
Navigation lights should not be confused with position lights. Both of them in water transport have different purposes and functions. Marker lights are used to indicate the size and outline of a vessel, providing safety when other vessels approach or approach the shore. They serve to prevent collisions and emphasize the dimensions of the vessel.
Navigation lights are designed to ensure visibility of a vessel at night and help other vessels determine its location and direction of movement.
Anchor lights are navigation lights and are designed to determine the location of the vessel while moored both on the open sea, in an undeveloped lagoon, and in a port or marina. That is, regardless of the presence of any extraneous artificial lighting in the equipped marina, the anchor lights on the vessel in the dark or in case of poor visibility in the parking area must be turned on.
The main characteristics of navigation lights include color, location on the vessel and brightness, which are strictly regulated by marine navigation regulations to ensure safety on the water. All this fully applies to anchor lights when we talk about their properties and categories.
Types of Anchor Lights
Characteristics of anchor lights are specified in International Rules for Preventing Collision at Sea 1972 (hereinafter referred to as the Rules), which are an annex to the “Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea”.
The nature or type of lights displayed on ships at anchor remains unchanged in the new edition of the Rules. Each such vessel must carry two white anchor lights or a ball.
The lights required by the Rules should be displayed in the most conspicuous places, one at the bow of the vessel and the other at the stern, so as to clearly indicate its extremities. This is one of the categories of anchor lights types when classifying them - their location on the yacht.
In this case, the bow anchor light must be located at least 4.5 m above the stern light to make it possible, when observing them, to judge not only the length of the vessel, but also its location (angle) and the approximate direction of the etched anchor chain.
Due to the fact that this type of boat lights must be placed where it will be visible 360 degrees, and they are positioned higher than other navigation lights, many models listed on the topRik marketplace are equipped with a steel pole.
topRik marketplace offers a large selection of models of navigation lights, including anchor lights, differing in design, size and mounting method. Even for a PVC boat, you can purchase a circular white light powered by batteries, mounted in any convenient place with a clamp or suction cup. For larger yachts and boats we offer anchor lights:
- in stock for different lengths of boats;
- with a viewing angle of 360 degrees;
- on a telescopic clamp;
- with strobe effect;
- with Fresnel lens;
- with degree of protection IP56;
- on a retractable rod with a 360-degree rotation, etc.
Stainless steel, marine plastic (polycarbonate) and energy-saving lamps were used to manufacture the models presented on the marketplace.
Benefits of Using Anchor Lights
Some sailors mistakenly regard the requirement to install anchor lights to comply with the rules of the international maritime community as a bit of an excess. But it should be remembered that all maritime charters and rules are written with an eye to shipwrecks of varying degrees of danger to the lives of the crew.
Therefore, the purpose of anchor lights is to provide night visibility for boats and prevent significant damage to yachts moored in ports and marinas, as well as those that come here for anchorage.
Correctly installed safe anchor lights are a guarantee that the skipper of a moored yacht will correctly assess the location of the moored vessels, as well as their angle, for which purpose two anchor lights are placed on boats of considerable length - bow and stern.
Examples of Usage
We open this section with an illustration that provides examples of installing anchor lights and other types of signal lighting. The rules require that the following categories of vessels can be distinguished by signal lights:
- self-propelled single vessels and convoys on the move and at rest;
- non-self-propelled vessels when towing (i.e. underway) and when parked;
- technical fleet vessels;
- fishing;
- undersized;
- sailing;
- rack-mounted flotation devices and rafts.
Vessels fishing on the river are also singled out, since their lowered nets can occupy up to half the width of the shipping channel, posing an increased navigational hazard for passing vessels.
Sailing ships can be compared to a moving “navigation hazard”, and therefore they are classified as a separate category of ships. A simplified version of signal lights is installed for small vessels.
According to the Rules, a vessel less than 50 m in length may carry one instead of the required two anchor lights. At the same time, it does not have to be raised at the stem, but can be placed in the most visible place, since marking the bow and stern of the vessel with anchor lights on small vessels loses its meaning. The anchor ball on all ships must be placed in the most visible place in the bow.
If you use your boat for net fishing, you should know that you are not required to display anchor lights or a ball. Such vessels, regardless of their condition (moving or stationary), carry appropriate fishing lights and signs.
On ships over 100 m in length, in addition to anchor lights, work lights or other equivalent lights should be used to illuminate the decks so that the bow and stern anchor lights of such ships are not mistaken for the lights of free-standing small craft at anchor.
The Rules stipulate the use of anchor lights on yachts running aground. Such a vessel must display anchor lights or a light (depending on the length of the boat) and two all-round red lights or three balls located vertically in the most visible place.
The rules give the right to a vessel less than 7 meters in length not to display anchor lights required for a vessel anchored or grounded if such a small vessel is located outside narrow passages, anchorages and outside areas of normal vessel traffic, i.e. where the absence of these signals will not affect the safety of navigation of other vessels. If a small vessel is anchored or aground near the fairway or in the area of normal vessel traffic, then in these cases it must display an anchor light (lights) or a ball.
In judicial arbitration practice, a vessel is considered to be at anchor if it has a strong connection with the ground and is securely held in place by its anchor, on a mooring barrel or on another similar device, on the mooring lines of another vessel anchored (barrel).
Accordingly, a ship should be considered to have anchored only after:
- the released anchor will firmly enter the ground and stop the movement of the vessel;
- a cable will be supplied from the vessel and secured to a barrel, bridle or other floating structure that has a strong connection to the ground;
- the mooring lines will be secured and delivered to another vessel securely anchored (barrel, bridle, etc.)
Based on this, the time for turning on the anchor lights or lifting the ball is determined. The time of switching on, as well as the time of switching off the anchor lights (respectively, raising or lowering the ball) must be recorded in the ship's logbook. A damaged anchor light must be immediately corrected or replaced with another. It should be borne in mind that delay in displaying anchor lights may confuse other vessels and lead to collision.
If the released anchor does not hold (dragging along the ground), and the vessel drifts as a result, then such a vessel, within the meaning of COLREG-72, should be considered underway, since it does not have a strong connection with the ground. Similarly, vessels maneuvering with a released anchor should be considered underway, for example, when approaching a berth.
In accordance with this, ships drifting at anchor must carry navigational lights. Such vessels, although technically sound, are actually deprived of the ability to maneuver freely.
This situation is dangerous, since oncoming vessels may mistake a vessel drifting at anchor (not displaying any signs during the day, but exhibiting running lights at night) for a freely controlled one underway and, taking this into account, expect that in certain situations it will give way.
It is advisable for a vessel drifting at anchor to use the signals prescribed by the Rules to attract attention, as well as appropriate signals to indicate its condition.
It is also necessary that a ship drifting at anchor take all possible measures to stop the drift as quickly as possible or to remove the anchor. Therefore, appropriate surveillance must be organized on a ship at anchor to ensure timely detection of possible ship drift.
The topRik marketplace presents the best models of anchor lights for yachts with the ability to choose both by size and type of boat, as well as by the brightness of the model, type of fasteners and other characteristics.
Feel free to leave your own reviews about the anchor lights that you purchased on the topRik marketplace on the appropriate page of this section.
FAQ
How to choose the right anchor light for my boat?
When selecting the appropriate anchor light for a particular vessel, the size and use of the vessel should be taken into account. Depending on the size, you may not need to install one of the two anchor lights, but if the vessel exceeds 100 meters in length, in addition to installing anchor lights, you will have to turn on working lights at night and in poor visibility during the day so that those entering the port or marina are able to perceive this large vessel as a single watercraft, and not two separately moored yachts.
What rules and standards exist for anchor lights?
All ship owners or captains, skippers, and helmsmen appointed by them must be guided by International Rules for Preventing Collision at Sea as last revised in 1972, which are annex to the “Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea.” It sets out in detail the rules for the use and standards for anchor lights, including for small fleets, as well as the features of installing anchor lights for certain types of vessels, depending on their purpose, conditions in the water area and condition.