Last summer I had my family at a restaurant on the water and was not paying attention to the time. I went outside and it was already getting dark. We still had about 20 min of daylight left but I didn't want to fly home with the kids so we took it slow, by the time we got to the marina we were going barely fast enough to plane the boat. It was a clear night with a little help of a full moon and the GPS, we did it without to incident but if we were 10 more minutes at the restaurant, we might have had a problem. I noticed some boats had a night vision feature on them and was wondering how they worked. I sure I'm not the only one that ever got caught in the dark.

I suppose night vision or GPS would help a good deal, especially if you're in unfamiliar waters. I've been boating on my lake my entire life. I know it well enough that night boating is a non issue. I do it all the time, just always go a little over minimum planing speed.

Yea, in the lake we boat in same thing but in the bay they have these day markers with 1 light on it and usually a huge "protected" bird nest that sometimes covers the light. I saw some outerlimits boats with this feature but I don't know if they are in the states or overseas.

I just retired as a Search and Rescue (SAR) pilot. I have used both systems for a long time. Keep in my mind the stuff I used was top of the line and very expensive.

FLIR is both a brand name and also a reference to the type of technology. F L I R is an acronym for Forward Looking Infra Red. It uses heat as a differential. The image you see is heat. The systems I used can distinguish a change in heat as low as 4 tenths of a degree F. As an example if you had a moonless, starless, no shore lights, you could see a swimmer IF THE SWIMMERS HEAD WAS ABOVE WATER, not because of light, but because of heat. If the swimmer went under water you would not see the swimmer.

NIGHT VISION GOGGLES are a light amplification technology. My former equipment amplified light up to 6000 times. Enroute to a SAR we could spot a campfire 40 miles away.
So both technologies have great advantages as compared to your eyeballs. See if you can try some out and decide which one you like.

A pair of these should work http://www.amazon.com/ATN-PVS7-3-Nig.../dp/B000WGQ9YI

Confused.

When you say you got "caught in the dark" do you mean your navigation lights weren't working?

I go night boating all the time, got the water all to yourself! Not sure what the concern is, the nights with moon light are way better. Turn all the lights off on your dash, or protect your eyes from them. I avoid looking thru my windshield, and keep it on plane but nothing crazy. 40 ish.

You have no idea how many people are out there in sail boats, night dives, or just playing grabass with the lights off thinking they were the only ones out there.

3 k to drive at night a little .. ok

Night boating is awesome but can be very dangerous as some people don't have working navigation lights. Just something about it that I love.

Some of our best memories come from night boating. Every year we try to make it out to see the peak of the Perseids meteor shower. Normally we head out of Milwaukee with the GPS on heading east for about 10-15 miles. Sometimes more. Luckily, this time of year there's almost never a breeze nor a ripple in the water at night / morning. Smooth as glass. The stars feel as they are coming right down on you without the light pollution from the city. Shut down engines and the lights, yes sometimes the mooring light too. We always keep a lookout but normally we do this between 12 - 3 am, not a soul out there. Simply majestic.


http://www.amsmeteors.org/meteor-sho...ower-calendar/