How many times have been sailing at night on a voyage and wanted to see the trim of your sails? You can turn on the spreader light, or shine a flashlight on the sails. Both approaches will wipe out your night vision, however &mdash unless you use a red light. An Australian company called Glowfast has an innovative solution to this issue of seeing in the dark. Called Luminous Sail Tape, it allows you to see sail shape at night (see accompanying picture). Glowfast claims its tape will improve sailing performance as much as 20%. Maybe the best thing about the tape for electricity-conscious voyagers is that Luminous Sail Tape needs no power input. The tape uses patented technology that allows it to emit light for as long as 20 hours with only 10 minutes of exposure to light.
Not sure how this type of sail illumination figures into the Colregs rules for navigation lights for sailboats. But it surely wouldn’t hurt in making a voyaging boat more visible to other vessels at sea.
