I'd like to add some lights to my tower soon and am wondering what the best setup is. I will be mainly using it to navigate at night, not board at night. Are tower lights useful while navigating at night or is there too much glare off of the bow? What's the use for lights facing backward if you're not boarding?
There is a ton a glare forward with the lights on. I found if I put my bimini up it cuts the glare from the interior - not perfect but better. The weird thing that I have found is that it's not like driving in a car where you can see the road. You essentially see nothing until there is an object ahead of you - really weird. I will only navigate slowly with them on.
If you are going to be using them for driving then I highly recomend not getting any of the tower light setups almost all of them will do no good for your use. The best thing to have is some spot lights, as bright as you can get. then also figure out the best mounting angle for the speed at which you're driving. Because in a boat your speed changes the angle the boat is at and this will change where your lights are aimed.
As said above you will not be able to see very well due to glare. I would personally recommend having some lights installed into the hull under the rub rail. This way you will not have the glare problem. They are more like car headlights, although they are technically called docking lights.
Having a forward and rear facing tower lights are nice as they light up everything.
I leave a handheld 12v spot light in my boat. It's pretty small and just plugs into a powerpoint.
I've used it while coming into docks and loading the boat on the trailer at night. It's also handy to hang down from the tower to light up the boat for cleaning stuff out at night too. I've tried and it does not work very well for running out in the open water though. The boat moves around too much at speed and even holding the light by hand it's hard to get much usefull light.
My buddies Malibu has docking lights up front under the rub rail like Peter mentions. These work pretty good while at slow speeds (around dock and loading)too.
O.K., you've got me convinced to put docking lights in the bow of my VLX. I like to get things done as inexpensively as possible and I'm also a do-it-yourselfer. So, has anyone ever put these in themselves? Will ANY aftermarket lights work?(correct angle?)
I have tower lights and I like them. But here is a alternative between docking lights and tower lights. People have discussed the cons of tower lights and I agree with them. The cons of docking lights are they are to low and dont shine very far. This is a perfict blend of both. Keep in mind I havent seen this in person and the information Im going to give you is 2nd hand, but so is 98% of the information on the web so dont let that stop you, this is my friends set up on his "Bu" and he loves it. He says he dosent get the glare from the tower box we all know about. These are H.I.D lights and they mount on the tower leg and the wires run threw the tower leg mount so the lights look like they are just sitting there, stealth wiering, I have seen the lights and mounts in person and they are way brighter than the tower light I have. We are going to be using these light on Judes boat. I think the lights are called Lazer Stars check the web for them G"
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