equipping a boat for overnight fishing, what would you do?

[charlsie]

I have strip lights under the gunnels but they seem to play up with your depth perception and seems to make you disoriented after looking down for a while.
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That sounds pretty annoying shaun. I've got 8mtrs of strip lighting ordered, so going by general consensus, that will be more than enough. what actual colour do you have? my camp set up has warm white and orange (suposedly doesn't attract as many bugs) the orange is weird to operate in

[disorderly]

I have a variety of lighting..mostly leds that can be changed by flicking switchs on the dash to red, blue or white..

The underwater lights are blue and green because apparently green is best for fish attracting though both blue and green seems to bring heaps of squids and baitfish around at night....they are also useful as you can see the fish coming up from the depths on the end of your line..

The undergunnell lights can also be dimmed or changed colour..

The decklight on the back of the hardtop also gives some illumination to the baitboard..even in red mode I find it interferes with nightvision.. I'm not really sold on the "Red light is best" theory...

With most lights we bought good quality gear like Hella so hopefully we dont have to go changing them for a good while.

For navigation around the ramp or along creekbanks in the manroves I use a rechargeable handheld spotlight/ torch....I hate clowns that blind people with lightbars and fixed spotties on boats...they are totally useless in open water anyway..as Noel mentioned if you think you need them you probably shouldnt be out there at night anyway..

One other issue that has come up was after a 60km trip home one moonless night in a 20 knot nor- easter I had to steer the whole way standing up on the passenger side because even with the GPS screen on night mode, being directly in front of me in the driving position, it was still enough to mess my nightvision up.... to overcome this we have added a 2nd unit on a RAM mount on the dash which can be turned to any angle at all so its not shining in your face and the main dash unit can be turned off......I find almost any light at night messes with my night vision while travelling in open water..

Having good lights are good but the best addition for night is a Travelbuddy...nothing beats having a hot evening meal ..

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[charlsie]

Disorderly, thanks very much for taking a lot of time and going to a great deal of effort to post the pictures.
With your explanation of why you've set things up and why, i can now change my whole way of setting up the boat. Hand held spot lights sound way more user friendly. the placement of a rear facing light over the bait board needs more thought. Gazza suggests a light strip is ample. I could possibly set up a pole with strips running down it to put light over the board and back into the boat.

I hadn't mentioned before that we intend to use the boat inland as well, would love to do as much of the length of the Murray river as possible using the boat as a base and i thought having fixed lights would be of benefit to camping on the side of a river, good handheld lights in a fixed set up would suit two applications.
again, thankyou Disorderly, it's people like yourself that make using forums enjoyable and worth the time to visit

[disorderly]

No probs mate..

We just wanted our boat on the water as soon as we got it so i did a basic fitout to begin with and ever since just been adding stuff that we have found we need or may prove useful...

That gave us time to grow into the boat and be able to research the products and find the best solutions that worked for us..

It sure sounds like fun to camp along the river and catch a few Murray Cod and yellowbelly..

We also do some regular camping on Hinchinbrook island so when looking a light for camping we chose this floodlight rather then a spotlight because with the white LED's on it throws a 180 degree beam thats adjustable and you can read a newspaper 20-30m away..but with the only the red LED's on it just casts a light glow perfect for night fishing..


https://chsmith.com.au/Products/Hell...oodlights.html

and for overnight fishing and camping trips we used this flexible solar panel for the fridge and Travelbuddy..it seems good and the sellers were extremely helpful with good advice..we did try a more powerful heavier panel but didnt like the extra weight and bulk on the hardtop...the Earc panel only weighs 5.6kgs and can be fixed with double sided tape..

https://www.solar4rvs.com.au/sunman-...At531ewr8knIyU.

anyway, have fun with the new beast..it sounds like you have some great adventure ahead..

[Cobbo1]

If you're after a cheaper option than the travel buddy (I've never used one, so can't comment on a comparative bases) but I used one of these for years:

https://www.bcf.com.au/p/wanderer-ro...er/568769.html

I used to just make extra serves for dinner the night before going and pack it into foil trays with cardboard lids you can buy from woolworths, the oven fits two trays on top of each other and if you swap them over at the right time they don't take long to heat up, I'd say best $50 I've ever spent at BCF. Also I had my boat setup for overnighting with accessories like lights fridge oven etc running off Battery 2, and Battery 1 was isolated purely for starting, but charged both when running. Another preventative gadget I had was a portable jump starter, I never had to use it myself but did help someone get started early one morning, when you need it you'll be glad you spent that $100.

[ranmar850]

Most important part is to make sure your extra (House) battery is isolated from your Start battery. You then won't be ever caught with a flat start battery. Don't run a 1/2/Both system. Under-gunwhale strip lighting in LED is needed, and a light overhead any switchgear ypu may need to operate. And, of course, an all-round white light when at anchor. make sure you go LED everything, including the anchor light. No need to buy a sealed LED unit for that, get replacement lED lamps it it is currently a replaceable incandescent globe type. The LED will be a lot brighter than a conventional, and draw absolutely stuff-all. 45 litre Engels only draw 2.6 a when running, won't be a problem unless you want to run on freeze. The size battery you are talking about will be plenty. I regularly camp overnight on the Reefrunner, and my House battery is only a regular start battery. I have a 120 w flexible solar panel mounted on the hardtop to charge it during the day when not running. it will be replaced with a larger (100a/hr) deep cycle when the time comes, I run a Travel Buddy pie warmer for smoko and most late afternoons for the pre-cooked meals ( draws 6 amps) and my home made fibreglass fridge has a stupidly large compressor which pulls 6 amps as well, but only on a short duty cycle, doesn't come on much. The very short runs of a deckwash don't really count for much. My freshwater setup is a jabso on-demand pump pulling from a bladder under one of the front seats, very handy.

The only time I have ever had problems was out at the Montebellos on a windy day. Due to a strong easterly, we could only fish around the broken stuff inside the barrier reef on the west side, lots of anchoring. Literally up anchor, idle for a few minutes, anchor again. No solar panel then. Couldn't work out why the battery didn't want to come back up when I did brief runs, finally remembered I had the live bait tank running the whole time with nothing in it * facepalm* Other than that, never any problems on overnights, and, even if the House battery went flat, Start is unaffected.

[ranmar850]

I didn't explain how to islolate House and Start batteries. if you don't know already, you need a VSR. I'm sure someone will chime in here with "VSR's are crap, they fail, etc" Sure, they can. If you are wired correctly, and it is only a small boat, so keep it simple, forget DC-DC chargers, etc. Have a VSR between House and Start batteries, and an over-ride switch ( sometimes called Emergency) over the VSR. You can buy these as a ready-made setup, or make them yourself, as I did. If you wire it this way, a failure of a VSR is a minor inconvenience at most. I had one fail, noticed my House battery state got a bit irregular over the course of a couple of consecutive day trips, then stopped charging altogether. So you then switch the bridging ( emergency switch to OnN( normally left OFF), you are then running both batteries in parallel, charging both. Carry on fishing, replace VSR at your leisure. They are only about $60 for a Narva, so not an expensive item to replace.

[Noelm]

deleted, wrong post.....

[Dignity]

Most comments above are valid. My cockpit light on the rocket launchers were like Disorderly's but I found too many dead spots at night when at the bait board so changed it over for 2 smaller ones as I was fortunate that there was a bracket 500mm either side, a much better lighting setup I found.

[disorderly]

Most comments above are valid. My cockpit light on the rocket launchers were like Disorderly's but I found too many dead spots at night when at the bait board so changed it over for 2 smaller ones as I was fortunate that there was a bracket 500mm either side, a much better lighting setup I found.

Yep agreed ..one each side would be even better..

[charlsie]

thanks gents, some great ideas here and Ranmar, i had a mate in the boat explaining the exact same system with the vsr. I bought a batwing portable solar panel for camping a while back and it came with a regulator so i reckon i can use that to run into a start battery and the overflow would run to the aux deep cycle (house) battery. The most important thing is making sure at least one battery is capable of starting the motor. thanks for all the input guys

[gazza2006au]

8 meters of strip lighting geez thats going to pull about 1-2amps per meter that amount of light is plenty alone if u place that under the gunnels it will mostly be directed to the floor u could utilise a 3rd of that by putting it up under your canopy it will save alot of power and the light will be better distributed widely across the boat

[charlsie]

8 meters of strip lighting geez thats going to pull about 1-2amps per meter

gazza, i'll get the lights and a few of the other gadgets and add the amp hours up, the lights are led's so i'll be surprised if they draw that much?

also, the light being directed at the floor is sounding like the go, the unit i have coming is dimmable and warm white/blue. One thing that has come across clearly in everyone's posts is that while travelling on the water, the less light on the boat the better. I now know why noelm said i should rethink my idea of boating at night, fortunately there's some good people here who are willing to explain (in detail and give solutions) why i should change my ideas.

If i can't take onboard years of on the water experience (that has been gathered in a few days) i need my head read.

as for light placement, I'll just duct tape it in place and move it around for the 1st few times in the boat, then when i like where it sits, it'll get sikaflexed in to it's permanent position

[disorderly]

It sounds like you may we may have got the same Hard Korr 8m LEDs..

If so, they only draw 0.8 amps in total according to the specs. .

[charlsie]

It sounds like you may we may have got the same Hard Korr 8m LEDs..

If so, they only draw 0.8 amps in total according to the specs. .

yep, they sound the same, after years of camping out of the ute and buying all sorts of lights, i found the hard korr pack with the carry case and love them. I've just tried the tent pole clips that hook into the back of the lights and they will go on the bimini poles but don't hold very well due to being for a slightly less diameter pole. the idea is to stick with hard korr and have the system fully compatible