Yay or nay?

I get it for race boats, but wife thinks they are cool and likes safety/aviation where I’m guessing they originated.

Have been seeing them more on boats.

Cool, safer or not, I'm pretty sure they're not legal when your boat is in motion.

Strobes simply destroy your night vision so a BIG no for me. Pretty sure not legal like...oh, anywhere.

Yes, indeed they kill the night vision of everybody around them, but not them! When I leaned to fly, my instructor was adamant about not turning on the strobes until after the runup and before taking off for just that reason. I put those lights in the same pile as pontoons with all colors of rope light strewn all over, transom lights while under power, and pontooners leaving their "driving lights" on.

That said, when we had our BatBoat, we had a strobe on top that was used only while racing during the day when night vision is not a challenge.

That`s a bad idea.

Strobes were cool when boats like Low Altitude have one, now that everyone has one they are not cool, not safer, zero reason to have them unless your boat is very unique and special powered by turbines or some reason that the strobes "fit" the build.

Wasn’t sure if a race org or someone thought they were useful, but can’t find anything online.

Did find an undated USCG doc that said ‘$5000’ fine for using the inland distress improperly, so there is that.

Absolutely my biggest b!tch about night boating Strobes, LED offroad lights, "headlights", people using spotlights for more than marker ID...........and it's all illegal!

Cool ain't cool if you can't see

Just like the pontoon drivers with the “headlights” on.

I was out back the other night and one came down the canal, freaking lights blinded me and I was on land!

I have the same issue with dock owners who have the motion detect flood lights pop on when you go by, I mean dam do you not get how blinding that is?

The first time I can remember seeing one installed on a race boat was the old Ettore 42 Fountain. That was someplace in the early 2000s. I cannot recall any race sanctioning organization suggesting using them. I had one of them installed on my canopy. We normally ran with the fast cats that normally ran much faster than we did, and especially in the case of rough water when visibility is sometimes limited One of those strobes definitely has the tendency to make you stand out to overtaking traffic, which could definitely help avoid a collision. Do they belong on pleasure boats? I don’t feel that running around on a pleasured boat with a high intensity strobe flashing is necessary. However, it could be argued that during a poker run where you have a bunch of fast boats running in a pack if you break down and you are bobbing around in the water It may not be a bad idea to have one on to avoid getting hit by a fast running boat. Did they help on the race boats for visibility? I feel that they do but you know what they say about opinions.