A LIGHT IN THE DARK

I have two concerns about the article by Roger Hughes in your October 2020 edition of Cruising World. § First, he replaced the incandescent bulbs in his Aqua Signal lights (below) with LED bulbs from Amazon. Navigation lights are tested and certified by the ABYC and the USCG as a unit. I believe that replacing the bulb with another type negates that certification. That might lead to increased liability on the author’s part if he were involved in a nighttime collision and subsequent legal action. § The second concern I have is that many LED bulbs generate a lot of radio-frequency interference that can significantly degrade the performance of radios such as an onboard VHF. This could also represent a safety issue. § As an aside, these two reasons are among the ones that caused me to replace my nav lights with ones from Marinebeam, which are certified and have virtually no RF issues. —Norm Poulsen, via email