Trying to learn your lights by memorizing flash cards is not the easiest way to interpret lights for real. When you're at sea, it's rare for a vessel to present the same aspect as the flash card.
I've found the best way is to learn the various sets of lights and their meanings, and when at sea to unpick the cluster by extracting navigation lights first, and then the information give by the other sets of lights.
Fishing vessels are sometimes a law unto themselves. Most follow the collision regulations with regard to lights, but they almost always have bright working lights on deck, which can be confusing and will hide their fishing and navigation lights (unless they're purse seine vessels, when you'll be blinded by their yellow flashing lights and won't see anything else at all!)
First of all, start by sorting the trawlers from the fishermen. Trawlers show an all round green above an all round white, and for vessels over 50 metres, a white masthead light above and abaft the green and white.
Fishing vessels (anything not a trawler that fishes) show an all round red light above an all round white light, with the same requirement for a masthead light for vessels over 50 metres.
Where the fishing vessel has outlying gear - nets, trawl or long line - extending for more than 150 metres horizontally from the vessel, she should show a single all round white light in the direction of the gear.
So far, its fairly simple. Green over white all round for trawlers, red over white all round for other fishermen, and a single white all round in the direction of gear over 150 metres out from the vessel. Fishing vessels over 50 metres should also show a masthead light above and abaft the fishing pair, but apart from that, there's no problem.
However, there are one or two special rules. Trawlers over 20 metres must show 'net lights'. These are two vertical lights: whites when shooting nets, white over red when hauling nets, and two reds if the nets happen to get stuck on something on the sea bed.
Sometimes trawlers operate in pairs with nets streamed between them. This can be dangerous for any small craft thinking it can sneak between the two of them, so another special rule applies. Each of the pair shall have “a searchlight directed forward and in the direction of the other vessel of the pair”, which will make a searchlight 'V' in the direction they are travelling in.
In my experience, it's rare for pair trawlers to operate their searchlights continuously like this. They tend only to switch them on to illuminate the pair if a vessel seems to be getting in their way, and then they tend to swing them about, pointing them first at you, then at the other vessel in the pair, as if to give you a strong message.
It can be quite a shock if you don't know what it is because those searchlights can be very bright indeed! And yes, I've had it done to me. The message couldn't be clearer - keep out of our way!
And then, finally, there are Purse Seine fishing vessels. These operate by drawing a net in a circle and then tightening up the bottom to form a 'purse'. For years I thought they were only in the book for academic reasons, because I'd never seen one. But one night, crossing from Falmouth to Treguier, the channel was full of them.
They show two yellow flashing lights, one above the other, flashing “alternately every second and with equal light and occultation duration.” The effect is startling at night, because at more than a few yards distance you can't tell there are two lights - the two merge to look like a single flashing yellow - and they are far brighter than any navigation or fishing light.
And as they are operated only “when the vessel is hampered by its fishing gear” the effect is like being in a giant's playground with massive road works but no roads, where the lights are switched on for a while then off again - yellow lights flashing all over the place, with little hope of working out distances, or frankly, of any worthwhile bearings. I remember the night very clearly - it was stunning, and sheer madness.
You might be forgiven for thinking that the best thing you can do with fishing vessels of any description is to keep well clear. And that certainly is your responsibility under the Collision Regulations. But it's not always possible. You can find yourself in the middle of a fishing fleet very quickly indeed, and then trying to work out which way to turn to avoid them is a nightmare.
Coming down the east coast of Spain one night, I spotted a fisherman off to starboard. So I turned to port to avoid him, then spotted another one ahead and turned to starboard, and then another and another, until I was surrounded by a ballet dance of fishing vessels all keeping clear of me, then doing fancy turns behind me as soon as I'd gone by.
Some performed their sweeping turns only a few hundred yards away, and in the end I decided it would be much less confusing for them, and much easier and safer for me, if I just held a steady course and let them avoid me. Not exactly sailing according to the collision regulations, but in my view a great deal safer than me dancing around the ocean in a totally unpredictable way in the middle of a Spanish fishing fleet!
Fishing lights are not difficult to remember as long as you think of them as a separate set from navigation or restriction lights.
Richard Thomas holds a Commercially Endorsed RYA Yachtmaster and Cruising Instructor (Sail) certificate. He runs his own delivery business, www.yachtmovers.co.uk
He is available for deliveries, assisted passages, own-yacht tuition, and yacht management.
