Navigation Lights

After my post about the lighthouses and the post with the Loonetta and the navigation lights, I browsed through my "boat drawer" looking for boats with correct navigation lights. I didn't find a lot. One of the better ones was Rene's beautiful Schouw with red and green but no white stern light. What we see here is Rene's latest project fitted with a top navigation light I just made. It's a single prim.

Top navigation light

For small boats this is by the book. At least while under sail. When powered you need a white forward light too. In RL top lights have a couple of disadvantages. First, it's a pain to change the bulb. Not really a problem after those LED lights came along. They last a lifetime. Secondly there's the thing about having extra weight in the mast... wires and stuff. Racers don't want that. Neither of these problems exist in SL. There is one good thing though... the windex is lit at night. It's kinda tedious sitting there in the dark with a flashlight.

From starboard

Here's a shot of Victors Dragon. It is a little difficult to make lights visible from a distance in SL, but it is visible. It's set to shiny, full bright. There's a couple of angles that needs to get right. Red and green should cover 112.5 degrees. White covers 135 degrees. Not that hard to get right.

Aft

Here's what it looks like from the stern. Not a big surprise. What I see is the red glow "spilling over". It seems this first less-than-five-minute-version isn't a hundred percent perfect. There's a littlebit of that spill over or blend when seen from the bow too. Experiments will show how to make it go away. Probably by adding a black line between those coloured sectors.

Bow

So that's it. Supersimple to make and to use. I'll put it in a free boatbuilders fittings bag one day. Probably stick it on the wall in the TYC boathouse. If you want to make your own navigation lights, this next image might come in handy. They're all over the internet.

Different nav lights

This shot doesn't cover all navigation lights. For instance there's a handfull of special lights for tows and for hovercrafts. Also there's a handfull of special cases where the Americans chose not to follow the international rules, but that's just the Americans, hehe. At least on boats they have green on the right side.

Single prim top light

UPDATE: What's not on that first poster is a sailboat under sail, and that's what we really need. Why? Smaller sailboats - under 12 meters - are allowed to have a single zone navigation light at the top of the mast. I found this second poster over on MessingAboutInBoats. What's that mean? This means that correct navigation lights will only cost one prim. So now there's no excuse for not having navigation lights.