I know there not a lot of bay boats on here but I thought Id post pictures of the LEDs that I added to my boat. I ordered green drain plug LEDs. I made a little bracket and then added them to my trim tabs.



And the result



I had no lights facing forward so I got this light bar and mounted it to the T-Top. Its 240 watts so I went ahead and ran a dedicated circuit back to the battery through a relay for it.

How do you deal with bright glare from the front of the boat? Can you aim that thing up enough to overshoot the front of the boat,and still see the water in front of you? That's always been my problem with lighting the path in front of the boat without blinding myself with glare from the boat...Let us know how that works for ya.Course,if it is only used when anchored up and fishin,then it's all good.

Ill take a video the next time im out

Here is a video I took. There is a glare on the front of the boat, but I think its a little exaggerated in the video. It lights up everything around good enough for me to feel comfortable on the water at night.


Video

I would check with a LEO before getting too excited about it. There have been numerous threads on various forums about being underway with LEDs at night. I would be particularly concerned with them being red and/or green since those are the colors of navigational lights and have to meet a legal requirement for arc of visibility and visual distance. If you were ever involved in an incident where the other party claimed they were confused because they thought they misread your lights thinking they were nav lights, it could get very expensive. Cool does not trump legal. I would think that having any kind of lights pointed high enough to blind another boater may also cause you a problem.

Think I will take my chances...If I think there is something in the water, I can see if there is. It was dark out when I took the video and I was able to safely navigate around the bridge. I was also able to find the dock (that had no lights).

The safety, and legal, aspect of using them underway does not just involve you. Nav lights are specified the way they are for a reason. If you alter the lighting when running across the water at night, then you alter the way another vessel sees yours. You might remove their ability to gauge your direction and speed accurately, which could create a dangerous situation. Should an incident occur, you will be at a legal disadvantage right away if running anything other than specified navigational lighting. Just food for thought.

I have green LED's under the gunnel running the full length of my boat on the outside, and red on the inside. I rarely run them when underway, and when I do I know there are no other vessels anywhere near me. As soon as I spot another vessel I cease the use of all lighting but the proper nav lights.

Personally, i know the bodies of water I run at night well enough that I'm not worried about hazards as much as I am other vessels. I encounter bow hunting boats, one in particular, who love running a blinding array of spotlights surrounding their boats, and it can be difficult to know if they are running or not when they are all lit up. I see pontoons that look like cars running across the water because they run their docking lights.

If a boat is properly lit, it's so easy my 6yr old little girl can tell me which direction they are headed, and if we're on course to get close to them. She has no concept of port, starboard, bow, or stern. But even she can deduce this simple info from comparing them to our boat's lighting. Change the color or location, add or take away, and you cannot make any assumptions about the heading of another vessel. That, can be dangerous, and illegal.