Spotlight Mount Location for SD2200

dolfan1967

Good day All,

We just did our first fireworks by boat this past weekend. Perfect weather and water and an awesome fireworks show presented by Tim's 2 Restaurant made for a memorable experience. Being on the VA Potomac River, all boaters have to very conscious of crab pots and the buoys. Saturday evening there were more crab pots out than I had seen all year. My first mate had a 3 D-cell maglight and my neighbor used drycell flashlight. Where this did the trick and we made into port w/o incident...to say my 'temporary headlight system' needed an alignment is an understatement. Between one pointing just in front on the bow and the other one apparently trying to signal Batman, we chugged safely along at a caution pace. I used the 'snail trails' on my GPS/Plotter assist my navigation as well, as one's heading/instinct is definitely affected by darkness.

Has anyone installed/mounted a 12v spotlight near the helm? Where our impromptu two flashlights did the job, the light given off is just useful enough; and I'd like to have access to a light that is useful as well as bright. Also, what brand/model is recommended/proven?

Thanks
Carl

cjjjdeck

The name I see the most for permanent mount or portable mount spot lights is GOLIGHT.  They have a ton of models in Halogen and LED technologies and the review ratings are 4 star and above.

Here's a link to their website (it's not that great to find products on, almost too many models to choose from.  You might be better going on Amazon or a marine supplier; Overtons, West Marine, iBoats; and put GOLIGHT in their search box to narrow it down): 

http://golight.com/

I couldn't find a location on my boat that satisfied me to mount a permanent spot light, so I settled for a handheld that I keep on the boat.  I chose a Streamlight Waypoint.  It is an LED light that runs off of C cell batteries and it also can be operated from a 12 Volt power source (as a back up).  They also have a rechargeable model but it won't run off of a 12 Volt source.  If you know the name or own a Steamlight, you know it to be made of good quality. 

Here's a link to C Cell/12 Volt product page:

http://www.streamlight.com/product/class.aspx?cid=27

Here's the link to the rechargeable model:

http://www.streamlight.com/product/class.aspx?cid=39

HydroCanis

Good info.

I wish product manufacturers would quit using C cells. They're not enough smaller than Ds to matter, it's harder to find good deals on them, and the cheaper ones often don't have much more capacity than AAs.