The 10 essentials list and certain categories of the Offshore special regulations recommend carrying a flashlight. There are many instances from reading a chart to working on an engine where a flashlight is required. During this series we are always asking questions about what is the best way of making things safe.

As in an unreliable flashlight causing you to need to change a battery or bulb in the dark is useless.

Although flashlights are a simple and important technology they are not stagnant. Recently flashlights have switched from incandescent bulbs to LEDS (Light emitting diodes). Basically, LEDs are just tiny light bulbs, but unlike ordinary incandescent bulbs, they don’t have a filament that will burn out, They are illuminated solely by the movement of electrons in a semiconductor material. This means they last longer than incandescent bulbs, use less energy than standard bulbs, and produce a more natural lite.

Important flashlight features include bulb type and battery life.

One problem with LED lights is they don’t work as well at distance. Many LED flash lights don’t have reflectors so the light produced is diffuse. This could be an issue when shining tell tales on sails at nite or while looking for a person in the water.

Some of these features can be seen in comparing the Mini Mag Lite incandescent flash light and Princeton’s Tec Attitude. According to one source the Mag Lite has a relative throw of 31.62 to the Tec’s 10.95 . This means that the Mag Lite throws lite farther than the Tec. The mag lite shows an overall output of 5.8 to the Tec’s 3.2.

The superior performance of the incandescent Mag Lite must be measured against the lower ultimate cost and longer life of the Princeton Tec. Both retail for around $ 11.00.

There are also flashlights that rely upon a technology that eliminated batteries altogether. An example can be seen at http://www.nightstar1.com/index.htm. While it doesn’t require batteries it still must be recharged which means that it could stop at an in opportune time.

Looking into relative merits of flashlights may seem inane, but it pays to look at these simple and essential issues in advance rather than be caught out at the wrong time.

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