Sailboats, as we all know, have a choice of three navigation light configurations.
There's the classic deck-level lights, Rule 25(a). These, plus the Rule 23(a) forward-facing masthead light, are mandatory when under power.
The ever-popular masthead trilight is allowed by Rule 25(b) to be used in place of (NOT concurrently with) the 25(a) lights when under sail.
And Rule 25(c) specifies all-round red over green in addition to the Rule 25(a) lights when under sail.
(Click through those links for interactive animations of what each one actually looks like at night.)
If you're building, outfitting, or refitting a boat, which should you choose?
Many sailors are tempted to say "well, all the other sailboats in my marina have a 25(b) trilight, so that's what I'll fit." And, yeah, that's legal. It's fine. It does the job.
But it's not the best answer.
I've put this question to every commercial and naval skipper I've talked to recently: "Which lights do you, as the master of a large ship, PREFER to see on a sailboat?"
Their answer is always - ALWAYS - the Rule 25(c) red-over-green.
Why? I'll paraphrase some of the answers:
"The red-over-green is clearly a sailboat. It can't be confused with anything else, even for a second."
"Red-over-green plus deck level lights means I can tell its type, size, range, approximate heel angle, and approximate point of sail from two miles away just by the lights. A trilight only yields a bearing and a one-of-three-sectors heading."
"A trilight could be anything, small powerboats often travel without their forward white lights and are easily confused with sailboats that have only the minimum lights."
"Rule 25(c) lights indicate a sailboat that is maintained and equipped to a higher standard. It gives us high confidence that it'll be skippered correctly and isn't likely to do anything stupid."
"Now and then we see some idiot who puts a white strobe on a sailboat, sometimes directly on top of a trilight. That's illegal, dumb, and confusing. It's much safer to show the proper lights."
"The only reason trilights exist is because, back when a sailboat had 40 amp-hours of battery and incandescent bulbs took an amp each, sailboaters wanted to use just one bulb to save power. That's no longer a good excuse now that it's all LED."
"Yes, a trilight sticks up high above the waves, but so do Rule 25(c) lights. Quickly identifying you as a sailboat is WAY more important to us than seeing which of your sidelights is pointed at us."
"You know they don't have to stick up far above the mast, right? Take the 112.5° limit shields off a standard red sidelight and put one of them on either side of the mast just below the cap shrouds, then do the same with two green sidelights at least a metre below that. The back-to-back pair are close enough together to meet the Rule 21(e) and Annex 9(b) definition of "all round", and the 1+m vertical spacing makes it incredibly obvious to us what you are. That plus the deck level lights is ideal."
"Picking out a sidelight and a red-over-green that move together, against a city backdrop, is much easier than picking out a sidelight or a trilight alone."
And so, on my own boat and on anything I design, build, or refit in the future, I'm following Rule 25(c). Because that's what the commercial and naval skippers want to see.
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