Thursday, April 13, 2017

A better light...

A needful cruiser rant, some kind of depressing, and a little situational awareness of note...

I was going to install a new tricolor/anchor light  (a Aqua Signal clone with two Bebi led lamps) to my mast and had second thoughts partly because the light was a tad bulky for my tastes and partly because I'd really like a mast head strobe as part of the package.

As a result I found myself looking at tricolor/anchor/strobes...

The Aqua Signal is too bulky (what I'm trying to get away from) and, at $469, is way too expensive for my frugal (spelled c-h-e-a-p) nature.

Looking further afield any of the more compact tricolor/anchor/strobes were expensive or expensive with lingering bad reputations (I'm looking at you Orca/Lopo). So what's a poor boy going to do?

Enter Marinebeam...



It's compact...

It's well made...

It's a tricolor/anchor/strobe...

It's a two wire design...

It's just $99.

So, doing the math it's easy to work out spending over $400 or more vs $99 is something of a no brainer being there's a lot I can use the $300+ savings on elsewhere. I ordered a Marinebeam, it was shipped same day and in my PO Box three days after that.

The light is even better than I had hoped. The body of the light is PVC which will not rot up at the masthead as so many plastics seem to be doing these days. The switching between modes (Tricolor/anchor/strobe) is easy, and it does everything I need a tricolor/anchor/strobe light to do... What's not to like?

By the way, if anyone wants an unused Aqua Signal clone tricolor/anchor light with Bebi LEDs  drop me a line as I now have one surplus to requirements and taking up needful locker space.

Listening to Robert Randolph and The Family Band (pedal steel done right)

So it goes...