Most tinnies get set up for daylight and never get thought about again once the sun drops. Then someone stays out for a late bite and finds out the hard way that the nav light hasn't worked since the boat came home.
Fishing after dark is one of the better decisions you can make — the fish are less pressured, the water goes quiet, and a lot of estuary species feed harder in the last hour of light and the first few after it. But it only stays enjoyable if you can see, be seen, and still have battery left at the end of the night.
The Short Version
If you only take three things from this:
- Check your navigation lights before every trip, in daylight, not after dark. A dead stern light is a fine and a genuine safety risk.
- Work out your amp draw before you add another gadget, and know how much of your battery you're giving up overnight.
- Saltwater kills connections, not lights. Tinned cable, adhesive heat-shrink and dielectric grease will outlast anything from a discount bin.
What You Actually Need on the Water
Navigation lights aren't optional between sunset and sunrise, and they're not optional in restricted visibility either — fog, heavy rain and smoke all count. The exact fit-out depends on your vessel's length, so the authority to check is your state maritime body or AMSA, not a forum thread.
The basic arrangement on a small boat is red and green sidelights at the bow — red to port, green to starboard — plus a white stern light when you're under way. At anchor you show a single all-round white light instead. That anchor light legally needs to be visible from roughly two nautical miles, which is further than a lot of tired little units manage in real conditions.
Under way versus at anchor
This is the mistake that catches people out. Sitting on the anchor with your sidelights blazing tells every other boat you're moving — and someone running home at speed in the dark will read that light and make a decision based on it. Switch to the all-round white when you stop, and switch back before you move.
Making Lights Survive Saltwater
Most light failures aren't the LED dying. They're the connection behind it. Salt air, spray and a bit of bilge water will eat a bare crimp in a season.
- Use tinned marine cable rather than plain auto wire.
- Crimp with adhesive-lined heat-shrink so the joint seals as it shrinks.
- Smear dielectric grease on terminals and bulb bases.
- Keep connections high and dry, away from the bilge and the path of spray.
- Fuse everything, and carry spare fuses.
LED units draw a fraction of what the old incandescent globes pulled, which matters more than it sounds when you're running off a single battery. If your boat still has the original filament lights, replacing them is the cheapest useful upgrade on it.
Sizing the Battery Before You Add Anything
Do the arithmetic once and you'll stop guessing. Amps multiplied by hours gives amp-hours, and everything on the boat is competing for the same pot.
A typical 12V compressor fridge cycling overnight might average 1.5–2.5 A, so call it 20 Ah across a ten-hour night. LED nav lights, a sounder left running and a small deck light add maybe another 5–8 Ah. That puts you at roughly 25–30 Ah for the session. On an 80 Ah battery that's about a third of your capacity — fine if you're motoring home for an hour, not fine if you're rowing or drifting.
Two things follow from that. Charge properly at home before the trip rather than expecting the outboard to top up a deeply cycled battery, because an alternator is a topping-up device rather than a fast charger. And if you're going to run a fridge, a sounder and lights all night, be honest about whether one battery is enough.
Deck Lighting Without Killing Your Night Vision
White light is the enemy of seeing in the dark. Flip on a floodlight and your pupils take a long time to come back, which is exactly when you most want to see a float or a leader.
Low-level red or amber strip lighting along the gunwale gives you enough to bait up and find the esky without torching your night vision. Keep a head torch with a red mode for the same reason, and use spotlights sparingly and briefly. Other boats out there may be anchored showing a single white light, and blinding them is both bad manners and a bad idea. A hand-held spot is for identification, not for navigation.
Real-World Tips From the Ramp
- Test every light at the ramp in daylight. It takes thirty seconds and saves a trip.
- Turn the nav lights on before sunset, not after. Twilight is when you're hardest to pick up against the shore.
- Carry a battery-operated all-round white light as a backup. It's cheap insurance against a failed connection.
- Rinse and dry the boat after every saltwater session, and pay particular attention to the light fittings.
- Write your amp draw on a label inside the battery box. Next time you add a gadget you'll know what you're spending.
Setting the Tinny Up Properly
The difference between a boat that works at night and one that doesn't usually comes down to the electrical side — sealed connections, sensible fusing and enough charging capacity to keep everything running. Our 12V accessories range covers what sits between the battery and the light: connectors, cable and the charging gear that stops a night session ending early.
Over to You
Night fishing rewards preparation and punishes shortcuts, usually at the worst possible moment. Get the lights sorted, know your numbers, and the dark stops being a problem. If you've got a setup that's earned its keep on the water, we'd like to hear about it — tell us what you're running in the comments.
