20 June 2008

Shopping Spree

A serious ocean-going racer needs many things. Someone like me (not a serious ocean-going racer) may or may not have lots of these "things". For example, I have cold-weather foul weather gear, tropical foul weather gear, dryshirts, baseball hats, one serious offshore lifejacket/harness, and a cool pair of tennis shoes that cost under $30.

But I didn't have one of these:

A 5-setting LED headlamp. Phil suggested ignoring the red-light variety as they're useless. And since he's a serious ocean-going racer (SOGR), I took his advice. This particular model, the Princeton Tec Scout(TM), has a headband *AND* a visor clip. So, I can just clip the bastard to my baseball hat. I'm going to be a night-time sailing machine.

5 comments:

Wicketywack said...

The red-tinted option on my Home Depot headlights was priceless on the night sailing I did recently. Why would he say that function is useless? I guess he's not navigating by chart and compass; in that case, red lights are priceless, trust me. I suppose you don't need red lights to look at a glowing screen pin-pointing your position to the nearest centimeter....

EVK4 said...

Lonnie, I think you're right. our use case for the most part is on the foredeck and when trying to figure out which of the 18 lines led to the cockpit you're supposed to pull on. He was saying you have to be very close for the red to help; kind of the closeness you'll have on a paper chart.

Anonymous said...

Quite the stylish fashion accessory, coordinating well with those, uh, shoes.

Handy, too, for finding stuff at the bottom of lockers, seabags, fridges, and bilges.

Watch the brightness, though. 'High' on some of those puppies will weld the retinas of your watchmates.

Zen said...

Hmmm Already then, well I'm ready because I have two of those with a switch from red to white Whoo hoo

PS: Lady Bug looks lonesome

Carol Anne said...

Red is very useful for preserving night vision. However, it is utterly useless for telling the difference between colors.

Astronomers use red lights a lot, and so do pilots. However, both of those groups are looking at charts where telling colors isn't important.