Lighting
Light Keeper
New LED lights can last a decade or more.
I
t’s night sometime during World War II and a wooden boat is rowing through the darkness. Every now and then a small light is dropped in the water next to a mine. The light has a range of a quarter mile, so those on shore don’t see it but when the Americans launch their attack they know where the mines are and “can come in fast,” said Vernon McDermott Sr., president, McDermott Light & Signal, Ridgewood, N.Y. McDermott’s father built those lights, the first lights to come out of the nascent McDermott light business. They were soon followed by a light for submarines that had been damaged and couldn’t come off the bottom. The light with an attached telephone was sent out of the torpedo tube and up to the surface. These days it’s all LEDs from McDermott Light. One of the company’s newer LED lights is a portable “Not Under Command Light.” McDermott said that it “seems to be catching
McDermott Light & Signal
By Michael Crowley, Correspondent
When the boat loses power and you need to see your way around, McDermott Light & Signal’s standby light provides up to 20 hours of light. 50
on.” When a tug is, say, pushing a dredge and can’t maneuver, either a red-white-red light or two red lights warns others “to stay away from me. I can’t control what I’m doing,” said McDermott. Since the light is portable, simply attach it to a flange and plug it in. McDermott notes that while the Coast Guard’s Rule 27 allows any form of light to be used, compared to an LED light, “other forms of light are so inefficient as far as its drain. An LED light can last 10 years. You don’t have to change it every 30 days.” For about the past eight years, McDermott Light & Signal has been the only company to make LED standby lights for barges that haul concrete. When the barge is at the dock and guys are vacuuming out the concrete and the power shuts off, the LED lights stay on and will remain on for 20 hours. “The power goes out and they’ve got light.” McDermott Light’s newest standby light is for a tugboat’s interior. “It’s for the hallways,” said McDermott and is currently being tested by the Coast Guard. ORCA GREEN MARINE Orca Green Marine hasn’t been around as long as McDermott, only since 2002, but it had the first Coast Guard-approved LED navigation light in the world, said Megan Matthews, the company’s founder and CEO. That tri-colored light was introduced in April 2004. It was quickly followed by an all-around LED anchor light whose first customers were Navy SEALS operating in the South Pacific. On all of OGM’s LEDs, Matthews does the design work, the prototyping and personally builds the first 100 to 150 lights for each new light model. Beyond that, an ISO 9001 certified manufacturer in Texas had been solely responsible for building the LED lights. But that just changed. The company announced in April that Weems & Plath in Annapolis, Md., will be responsible for manufacturing and distributing OGM navigation lights. www.workboat.com • JUNE 2019 • WorkBoat
