Want to use Red LED's on the interior...Legal??

Quick yes or no question, are red led's legal in the interior of my boat...wanna use red to accent a red boat....

Mine has red, and I haven't been hauled to jail yet....

(Message edited by 03_35th on February 05, 2008)

No problem inside the boat. Illegal to use up on the tower.

I heard blue is the color that is illegal

I believe blue & red are reserved for emergency vehicles only. Yellow might be a problem too.

Plus the fact that red is the color of your nav light on the port side of the boat....... there could be issues if someone was coming up on your starboard side & saw red lights.

In fact, lights in general. Even regular tower lights are not legal in a lot of places. But people do it because it isn't all that likely you will get busted.

(Message edited by bill_airjunky on February 05, 2008)

We have red lights on the tower. They face down to illuminate the cockpit. We have never had any trouble with the law. But then again, there normally aren't to many other boats on lake tenkiller past dark, let alone a police boat.

So the blue flashing lights I saw on the tower of wakeboat on Saguaro Lake AZ recently aren't legal?! They were so similar to police lights I though the local sheriff had taken up wakeboarding.

Brett what boat is yours? I guess I haven't seen u out. And there's more of us out at night than you think. Just come back in the party cove and there's usually about 20 of us still back in the cove. We usually roll back out there around 9 and stay till midnight or so.

2000 Supra, check my profile for a pic, You say "party cove" as in Tinker cove? If so we have a place right across the lake in Terrapin creek. We normally try to stay away from party cove at night, Ive heard it gets pretty wild. When were out at night were normally just heading straight to the dock, and we've never encountered more than a couple of boats unless its around a holiday.

Man I haven't heard it called that but by the 80 y/o guys...lol. But yes.... straight across from Chicken Creek. My place is over in Cookson, so just one bend over ;).

Eh, night is probably more subdued than day time. Then again, I only hit Tenkiller on the holiday's.

Not sure if I've seen u around or not. I'm in a white Tige 24V w/ grey bottom.

But this year I'll be moving to an all black 24Ve. Keep an eye out for me and feel free to swing by and say hi. I'll prob. won't be there Labor day this year though, as memorial I'm hitting Lake of the O, and 4th is Texoma, then finishing it all off at Tenkiller.

Moxilla you should be fine w/ just interior lights. I've sat and chatted w/ the lake patrol one evening when I had all red interior LED's that were turned on. He didn't say a thing.

I have had red in all of my boats, never had a problem. But if johnny law wants to pull you over, he will find a law for it.

Yea you probly havent seen us around, we just upgraded from my grandparents pontoon to the supra.

But yea, feel free to drop by if you ever see us out there

dash is red so we did some in red, but the head unit is blue so we did some in blue too, never have been talked to be any for of cop or dnr

haha one of the police patrol boats on lake buchanan would be jealous of everybody's lights considering the face that they dont have any. The officers wave at you until you stop, so official

not to be too much of a dork, but the USCG actually has rules with regards to lighting displayed on vessels. Each of the lights required to be displayed actually have meanings to other mariners. These rules apply to everyone from small boats to supertankers. It can be found in part c of the rules... I do have some experience in this since they let me drive aircraft carriers around the Pacific Ocean.

http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/mwv/navrules/rotr_online.htm

Tim

my boat is at the shop right now getting red LED's put in it.

Tim "On" or "In" the vessel. I don't think interior lighting counts.

You are right, it is the EXTERIOR lighting, but someone had mentioned putting yellow (lights for tugs towing things),blue lights (LEO's), red (Nav lights) on towers and that was what I was referring to. Sorry if there was any confusion.

Tim

pimp my aircraft carrier!

You know I never thought about this.... but Tim made me think. Alot of larger ships actually have red lighting inside the bridge area for night use so as not to affect night vision. I'm sure if it's legal there, it's legal on our boats!