Practical Sailor's gear and boat reviews take the guesswork out of your buying decisions.

Volume 36
Number 2
February 2010

Practical Sailor Tracks Down the Best LED Tri-color Light

Testers take a look at six bulbs and lanterns from the marine LED navigation light market.

When it comes to navigation lights aboard sailboats, brighter is definitely better. And our latest tests of LED nav lights proved that more light can be made with less energy. In fact, we found that replacing a conventional incandescent bulb with a light-emitting diode (LED) of similar luminosity can result in up to a 90-percent savings in energy consumed over a given period of time.

Practical Sailor’s previous evaluations of navigation lights (September 2005 and Jan. 15, 2002) were tests of tri-color

Photos by Ralph Naranjo

One of three LED tri-color masthead lanterns that Practical Sailor tested, the Orca Green Marine LXTA-12v, showed minimal overlap of the red and green lights, making it easy to distinguish them at all distances up to 2 nautical miles.

masthead lights, sidelights, sternlights, and all-around white lights. …

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