LED Lights

s/v Honey Ryder has the old fashioned festoon and halogen lights in the interior of the boat.  They suck tons of power (not good on a sailboat) and burn so hot they will give you a sunburn in 5 mins flat.  The 3 festoon bulb fixture alone pulls 3 amps and we have 6 of those fixtures!  We have discussed off and on replacing the bulbs with LED's but have you priced a LED bulb lately?  A marine LED bulb?  They are expensive, in some cases $49 per bulb!  Additionally it is very confusing to figure out what type LED to get for what type fixture.  LED's look WAY different than regular bulbs so you can't go by looks.

You also have to be careful because not all LED's are made the same.  Some are made well and some are not.  I hit the internet to research our options.  The more I read, the more confused I got.  Then I talked to several other cruisers, same thing.  Now I will admit, most of this confusion was self induced.  For some reason, I was making this harder than it needed to be.  Finally last week, I decided it was time to quit dinking around and pull the trigger.  I started with Dr LED web site (very busy and hard to navigate) but then something lead me over Cruisers Forum and a thread about LED lights and MarineBeam

There I saw a video about a really kewl light that was perfect for us.  When you first turn it on, the light that comes on red.  If you turn it off and then right back on, the light comes on the second time is white and only one switch is required!  No need to get a whole new light fixture to get this benefit.  For those that don't know, sailors (boaters) need red lights at night.  White lights will ruin your night vision, red will not.  When you are on watch at the helm at night, your eyes adjust to the dark and you are able to see what is around you.  Any white light will blind you temporarily, messing up your ability to see what is around you.  Think about when you finish watching late night TV in a dark room. You turn off the TV and suddenly you can't see anything in the room.  You have to wait a few minutes to get your night vision before you can navigate your way to the bedroom.  We have not had any red lights on s/v Honey Ryder (other than a dedicated one at the nav station) because most of our fixtures have only one switch.  With this two-way light, we can now have the red lights we need.  Check it out.  Red/White Switchable -there is a video on the page so you can see what I am talking about.
I ordered from Marine Beam.  I had questions and Jeff personally assisted me, answering all my questions.  The pricing was good and the delivery was super fast - 2 days.

    

We have not yet replaced our nav lights with LED's.  We wanted to see how this went first. 

ROXXXXANNE!