Tornado owners - a question

Paul Glatzel · 01 October 2003, 18:57

Tornado owners - a question
Quick question/observation for Tornado owners.

I have undertaken 4 RNLI Sea Checks recently on Tornado RIBs and every one of them has had the wrong Nav lights fitted -they each had a tricolour - but no allround white.

Are these four just unlucky or have you had/seen the same?

Paul

jwalker · 01 October 2003, 22:03

Is a tricolour allowed on a power boat?

wavelength · 01 October 2003, 22:25

and if you do Humbers the nav lights/all round white never have 1m seperation cos the red and green are far too high on their A frames!

John Kennett · 01 October 2003, 22:32

Quote:

Originally posted by jwalker
Is a tricolour allowed on a power boat?

They are strictly meant to be mast head lights for stickboats, but I have quite often seen them on RIBs and sportsboats -- presumably because they are neat and easy to fit.

They are undoubtedly better than nothing, although they do not comply with the regulations.

John

jwalker · 01 October 2003, 23:40

Quote:

Originally posted by John Kennett
They are strictly meant to be mast head lights for stickboats, but I have quite often seen them on RIBs and sportsboats -- presumably because they are neat and easy to fit.

They are undoubtedly better than nothing, although they do not comply with the regulations.

John

Yep, that's what I thought. Ta.

jwalker · 01 October 2003, 23:45

Quote:

Originally posted by wavelength
and if you do Humbers the nav lights/all round white never have 1m seperation cos the red and green are far too high on their A frames!

It's often difficult to get the 1mtr. distance on a rib and keep the light visible. Some ribs I've seen have the lights so low that in a beam sea it must be a case of 'now you see me, now you don't'.

Paul Glatzel · 02 October 2003, 08:22

Totally agree that it is better than nothing but it has serious implications for anyone driving a boat at night with a tricolour.

Scenario: Your RIB has a tricolour (and thus at night is a yacht under sail) and is showing its starboard light to my RIB (you are moving left to right in front of me). As a you are a yacht I turn to port to pass astern, as a powerboat you turn to pass astern of me as I am the stand on vessel in your eyes and *!*!

The point about light separation is valid too but is obviously a practical issue on many boats however does not misstate what the boat is. It does strike me as slightly strange that so many boats from a major manufacturer were factory fitted with the wrong lights

Paul

John Kennett · 02 October 2003, 08:33

Quote:

Originally posted by Paul Glatzel
Totally agree that it is better than nothing but it has serious implications for anyone driving a boat at night with a tricolour.

I actually think that this is pretty unlikely in practice

Quote:

Scenario: Your RIB has a tricolour (and thus at night is a yacht under sail) and is showing its starboard light to my RIB (you are moving left to right in front of me). As a you are a yacht . . .

Although theoretically correct, I can't really see this happening in the real world. It would be a very small yacht with a masthead about 2 metres above sea level!

Quote:

I turn to port to pass astern, as a powerboat you turn to pass astern of me as I am the stand on vessel in your eyes and *!*!

Turning to port for collision avoidance opens up a whole different can of worms

I'm not suggesting that it's OK to show the wrong lights though. There's simply no need to get it wrong. On any RIB with a decent sized A-frame it is perfectly feasible to show the correct lights in the correct configuration.

Have you asked Tornado for their views on this? I've forwarded the URL of this thread to them for their info.

John

slangley · 02 October 2003, 08:53

What are the official directives on Nav lights. I currently have a 4m RIB with an A frame. I have 3 lights that were already fitted when I bought the RIB. It has a Red light on the port side corner of the A Frame, a green light on the starboard corner and white all-round light in the top middle. The A Frame is just under 1m across.

Paul Glatzel · 02 October 2003, 12:55

John

Will be interesting to hearing Tornado's comments!

Quote:

Although theoretically correct, I can't really see this happening in the real world. It would be a very small yacht with a masthead about 2 metres above sea level!

You can actually argue this both ways. A RIB close to you showing a tricolour could actually look further away for the very reason that the lights do appear so close to the water, a reasonable interpreation being that as a masthead light it must be some distance away to appear that close to the water (having re-read that three times i'm still not convinced the sentance makes sense - but my english doesn't get any better!). The net result is that the craft is far closer to you than you think as you start to act as the give-way vessel.

A good ripost to this is that if you are that close that it matters that much then you have got it rather wrong anyway would be a fair point. However in areas where there are lots of background lights and moving craft are quite difficult to pick up it does happen - albeit nice & slowly. Equally whilst you state it is unlikely to occur in practice i'm not sure i agree. I've had plenty of scenarios where when preparing to act as a give way or stand on vessel at night it has become apparent that what I thought I was looking at has transpired to be a very different type of craft - a common one being the yacht with every nav light/anchor light imaginable switched on

At the end of the day though the best bet is always to stay well clear of absolutely everything else at night.

Quote:

What are the official directives on Nav lights. I currently have a 4m RIB with an A frame. I have 3 lights that were already fitted when I bought the RIB. It has a Red light on the port side corner of the A Frame, a green light on the starboard corner and white all-round light in the top middle. The A Frame is just under 1m across.

These sound just fine, you should be able to switch them so that the allround white acts on its own as an anchor light too.

Paul

DM · 02 October 2003, 13:32

Quote:

Originally posted by Paul Glatzel
I have undertaken 4 RNLI Sea Checks recently

Paul, I hope you're not the 'gentleman' who did my recent seacheck. This fella turned up on my doorstep, in the deepest Midlands, dressed as though for a trans-atlantic crossing. He had this wonky eye so I didn't know if he was looking at me or at the sky. He was also a bit to tubby to climb into the boat unaided so I got the ladder out for him. He had this annoying habit of tut-tutting every item which didn't meet with his approval and when he discovered that I did not have a radar reflector, it made his day. 'You are in breach of SOLAS regulations' he boomed. I felt really guilty and hung my head in shame. I'm traumatised. I'm never going to sea again.

DM

Tekkie · 02 October 2003, 20:04

Paul,
The Dive club to which I belong purchased a new Tornado, and a light for us to fit, when the boat arrived neatly paked in it's box was (Youv'e guessed it) a Tricolor!! when the equipment officer questioned Tornado they said it was fine!!! needless to say we fitted Red- Green & Alround white.!!!

Take Care

brian

[URL=www.ashbypower.fsnet.co.uk]

John Kennett · 03 October 2003, 00:10

Quote:

Originally posted by Paul Glatzel
Will be interesting to hearing Tornado's comments!

Well here they are:

We give most clients a choice of lights, the larger craft all have 3 lights but even when you explain to most users the requirements, 1 m separation, on ARW with P & S they sometimes opt for the cheaper option of a single light, on the basis "they will never use it and At the end of the day some lights are better than none"

It is probable these single light craft are older, probably 10 years or so ?

However now we fit 3 lights as standard to all craft with double A frames and only change it if we are asked to. Obviously we do NOT fit all lights to all craft and often when a client retro fits lights they opt for a single one as it is easier for them to fit.

Regards
Laurence Lock
Barnet Marine Centre Limited

Laurence is a director of Tornado as well as of Barnet Marine who are the Tornado distributors.

John

Daniel · 03 October 2003, 09:26

Another interesting point for tornado owners would be the routing of gear / throttle cables and the effect upon stiff controls.

I guess this would only apply to the smaller models - in my experience of two 4.8m models in the quest for neatness Tornado have put so many bends into these cables to route them througn consols etc. etc. that the controls are very, very stiff - even from new.

No-one really realised why the first Yamaha control box failed, but when the second did we took it to my local Yamaha man who could not beleive the friction the cables were creating. New cables routed identically had the same problem and they are now routed outsite the console and accross the deck - less convinent BUT the only real option.

This problem must have cost the club over £500. Never contacted Tornado, meant to, just one of those things!

Paul Glatzel · 03 October 2003, 11:12

Laurence

Firstly thank you for responding to the question posed here.

From what you say Barnet Marine/Tornado knowingly fitted incorrect nav lights to RIBs produced between ten years ago and at least two/three years ago (the age of one of the RIBs I tested). You state that you now only fit the correct nav lights – which is obviously good. However it does strike me as rather surprising that as a manufacturer you could sanction the fitting of nav lights that showed your RIBs to be a yacht. Is the cost differential really that material? Surely the cost is largely in getting the power into the A frame & switched on the console rather than being overly dependant on the number of light units on the frame itself.

Either way as you now state the correct lights are being fitted, thanks for your response.

Paul Glatzel