Light ‘Em Up
Cost: $300 to $3,000 per light
Today, you can’t go to a marina at night without seeing streams of blues, greens, and bright whites shooting out from under the transoms of all manner of vessels.
No wonder. Underwater lights provide eye candy and attract sea life. But because they come in different styles, such as light-emitting diode (LED), halogen, xenon, and metal halide, you need to decide which is right for your boat. Since there are $100 LEDs and $3,000 LEDs, it’s best to start by working with a reputable underwater light company. Two of the most popular are Underwater Lights and OceanLED. Both offer a dizzying array of systems—even strobes.
You’ll also need to figure out if you want surface-mount or through-hull lights. Surface mounts are usually seen on boats under 35 feet and attach to the hull with the cabling inside and above the waterline. They can be serviced and repaired when the boat is out of the water, which makes them attractive for lift-kept and trailerable vessels.
For through-hull lights, a hole is drilled in the hull and a sealed light is installed under the water. This style is often seen on boats above 35 feet LOA. It’s recommended that anytime you’re looking to install a through-hull light, you have a yard handle the work.
As one who has underwater lights, I say
you can’t go wrong purchasing them.
Whether you want mood lighting or an
aquarium around your boat, they’re an
attractive and valuable option. One
manufacturer told me that he’s had
customers install lights prior to putting a
boat up for sale because of their ability
to—literally—lure people to the boat.
It seems like underwater lights are here
to stay.
—Capt. Patrick Sciacca
New-Age Power
Cost: $85 to $600
How old are your batteries? The
service life of a flooded-acid marine unit,
even a good one (with a properly
calibrated charger), is likely to be five
years or less under heavy, deep-cycle
usage. Gell-cells may be even less. So the
bad news is that the batteries onboard
your boat might be a little tired. The
good news, however, is that there are
now some super-gutsy batteries on the
market from manufacturers like Optima,
West Coast Battery, and others that
perform extremely well and promise
service cycles that go well beyond the
ordinary.
West Coast’s Odyssey battery is
a good example. Not only can it function
as a cranking battery (with a momentary
cranking output in excess of 2,250 amps),
it can also perform as a deep-cycle house
battery that is reportedly capable
of sustaining as many as 400
charge/discharge cycles to 80
percent depth of charge.
Moreover, West Coast offers
two-, three-, or four-year
warranties on its batteries,
depending on the model, and
says that many units have
logged service lives of up to ten
years.
Odysseys perform like this for
two reasons. One is the lead plates that
inhabit the rugged case: They’re made of
99.9 percent pure lead (not lead alloy)
pressed thin to boost plate surface area.
Then there are the internal cells, which
are welded in place to resist vibration.
And finally, there are the compressed
AGM (Absorbed Glass Mat) separators
between the plates, which are compressed
by about 28 percent to make them
stronger and more vibration-resistant.
Best of all, these new age batteries are
not prohibitively expensive. They cost
around 30 percent more than most
mainstreamers, depending on where you
buy them.
—Capt. Bill Pike
This article originally appeared in the October 2009 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.
