Navigation is a process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another. There are four general categories of shipping, including- land navigation, marine navigation, aeronautic navigation, and space navigation. All the navigational techniques involve locating the navigator’s position or patterns.
Navigation refers to any skill or study that consists of the determination of position and direction, boat or ship. In this sense, shipping includes orienteering and pedestrian navigation.
There might have many reasons for navigating at night. It might be; you like night fishing, taking a moonlit romantic cruise, or getting back after a dinner that continued long. Night boating is difficult from day excursions and challenging. If you are brave, vigilant, and cautious, you may find night boating quite enjoyable.
The Basics of Nighttime Boating Safety
When the sun dips below the horizon, familiar surroundings and landmarks disappear, we entitle it to be night. Nighttime boating is not an effortless task. It needs some extra quality for nighttime boating safely. Accurate navigation, lower speeds, cautious look, and safety precautions become more critical boating at night. GPS units, Chart plotter, radar, thermal/night-vision scopes, and spotlights can enhance safety measurement, but nothing can be equivalent to the human component when boating at night.
No matter what high-tech navigation equipment you have on board, the first thing you have to do is to slow down. At an unsafe speed, it is rather challenging to control the vessel quickly. Moreover, the quick ship may face terrible incident.
To navigate safely at night, we should follow the below rules;
- Slow down
- Share the lookout duties
- Tap into your preparations list
- Preserve your night vision
- Don't use headlights or spotlights
- Look for the red and green
- Listen
- Trust your navigation instruments
- Bring along a towel
- Dock with extra caution
- Slow down
Usually, visibility gets reduced at night. So, it is quite difficult to judge the distance, obstacle, moisture, and temperature. Moreover, boats may come across debris and crab pots, which are nearly invisible on inky black water. Unless there are full moons, open water, and no traffic, it is not wise to run on a plane.
Share the lookout duties
The operator has to keep an eye on gages to check the chart-plotter and actual driving. If an assistant stays with you, ask him to keep eyes strictly on the horizon with a periodic 360-degree scan to ensure that no one is coming up from behind or at an angle.
Tap into your preparations list
Before setting out in the dark, you should refresh the batteries of your flashlights and headlamps. Put binoculars close to the helm and locate personal floatation devices (PFDs). You may need to wear PFDs with an attached strobe light or glow stick in case someone goes overboard.
Preserve your night vision
Keep all the onboard lights dim, including courtesy lights, instrument and Chartplotter backlighting, and cabin lights. It might take you 20 minutes to adjust back to darkness after a spark of light. Use flashlights with a vision-preserving red filter and check the plotter only while needed. It is because even when all the onboard light gets dimmed, it will impact your ability to see out of the boat.
Don’t use headlights or spotlights
If you are not driving the car or boat, you should not switch on the headlights or spotlights. Use the docking lights only when arriving at your destination at a dock or another ship. In this situation, spotlights help you see close-up detail like cleats and handholds.
Look for the red and green
Running and marker lights are usually red and green. If you enter the harbor in North America, follow the rule: Red, Right, Returning, which means keeping the red lights to starboard to stay in a secure channel. Consider the following rules while staying on a boat underway on the water:
- Red and green lights mean forwarding on either side of the bow, and white light is aft at the stern.
- If you see both red and green, it means the boat is coming head-on.
- If you see white, the ship is ahead of you and driving far.
- If you are in doubt and you see red, stop. That means a vessel is crossing your bow, and it has the right of way.
- Before departing on your voyage, make sure your navigation lights are operable, and you’re visible to others.
Listen
To hear the sound of other boats, you need to turn off the stereo and listen. It will help you understand fog horns, bells, or other ships approaching. Use your hearing device, which may assist you in the dark when you can’t entirely rely on your eyes only.
Trust your navigation instruments
Your eyes, of course, play an essential role in the darkness, and your Chart plotter, is trustworthy. So, don’t suddenly decide your Chart plotter to be wrong. If your Chart plotter is not updated or you’re not entirely familiar with its use, you must be patient. In this situation, slow down and approach with caution until you identify whether your eyes and ears or your electronics are right.
Bring along a towel
A towel is essential during travel by boat at night. You can use it for different purposes. You can drape it over your body to stay warm and dry. Moreover, you can toss it over your figure to cut down the surroundings of onboard light, and you can use it to wipe a fogged windshield.
Dock with extra caution
We cannot identify the distances correctly at night. So, ask the operator not to jump onto a dock but instead of step off calmly if the boat is close enough. Check at least twice everyone’s knots and hitches before leaving the ship. Someone considers night boating as “riding a giant worm through Disneyland’s Space Mountain”—that’s not an exaggeration. However, if you’re organized, vigilant, you’ll find nighttime excursions quite pleasant.
Final Thought
Navigation is a crucial part of the life of people interested in fishing at night, taking a moonlit romantic cruise, or getting back after a dinner that continued long. Night navigation is more challenging and dreadful. If you want to navigate at night, you must be more careful. Though night boating is enjoyable, it may bring an additional challenge for you.
If you are careful, sensible, and cautious enough about planning, you can make your night navigation hazard-free and enjoyable. But if you are timid, careless, and incompetent at the rules and regulation of night navigation, you may face terrible incidents. Even you may lose your life either. We have tried to provide you some vital information about how to make safe night navigation. These will assist you in making your night navigation enjoyable and danger-free.