New “ bright twist” on boat lettering and night safety

 

New reflective boat lettering can improve your night safety.  New battery free flashlights are a must for having backup lighting on your boat when all else fails.

 

By Sam Kingsley

 

New boat lettering technology combines proven light reflective technology with the time honored tradition of displaying a boat name on the transom of boats and ships.  I saw this technology for this first time while visiting a friend in Deep Creek,  a historical body of water connecting the Great Dismal Swamp to the Elizabeth River in Chesapeake.

 

Deep Creek characterizes the essence of what is dark, quiet and peaceful when it comes to the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway).  If there ever was a place to test the effectiveness of reflective products,  Deep Creek is the darkest of them all.   While sitting the pier I couldn’t help but notice boat named “Candolina” moored a few hundred feet to the south. I could barely identify the faint lines of the cream colored boat. However, the boat name was calling attention to the boat in a very big way.  The red and gold outlined boat name  “Candolina” was bright enough to cast a long wavy reflection  stretched deep across the ripples dancing on the waters surface.  I asked my friend about this  boat lettering and  learned that safety minded boaters are now applying reflective boat lettering and graphics to improve night conspicuity while handsomely decorating their watercraft.  .

 

In daylight,   reflective boat lettering looks like ordinary boat lettering but with deeply enhanced color depth and richness.  At night,  this lettering reflects your position on the waterway with even the smallest amount of light cast from an approaching boat.  Under searchlight, you can see the reflective boat name lettering from miles away under clear night conditions.   For maximum conspicuity, reflective boat lettering on the transom along with reflective registration numbers on the sides provides nearly 360 degree visibility.  You can also add reflective boat graphics or reflective pin striping in widths up to 2 inches as a color accent to your boat.   You can be very creative with reflective products beyond the simple addition of reflective boat lettering decals.  At this location you can see a whole boat designed with this retro-reflective technology used on a recently refurbished pontoon boat : http://www.streetglo.net/custom-boat-name-decal-photos.html

 

Adding a huge dose of night safety can be as easy as overhauling your existing boat lettering and boat stripe design. I’ve changed both my boat lettering decals and my registration numbers from ordinary vinyl boat letters to the new reflective boat lettering products.   The limit of what you can do with reflective boat lettering and graphics is within your own imagination.  Nearly any kind of boat lettering or boat graphics can be fabricated with reflective vinyl.

 

Retro-reflective boat lettering decals and registration numbers can be purchased from your local vinyl fabricator.  Shop around for the best price but insist on 7 year engineer grade reflective vinyl.   I found the same identical boat lettering design I wanted online for only $122.00 as compared to $400.00 from a local sign shop.  You can experiment with designing your own boat lettering decals online using a boat lettering design tool located at   http://www.streetglo.net/boat-lettering.html .  This nifty boat lettering tool lets you design any kind of boat lettering in reflective or non reflective vinyl and you can save the image to your local hard disk. What I like about this boat lettering design tool is how it displays the finished product on a boat transom giving you a clear idea of how your boat lettering design will look.   Also at this site is an online video showing how to install boat lettering using wet method installation techniques.   Wet installation allows for more accurate placement of the boat lettering and eliminates the typical problems a novice might have trying to install boat lettering decals.

 

For additional night safety precautions, you might want to also check your boat now for the necessary night safety equipment.    You should check your flares to make sure they have not become older than the expiration date on the packaging.     You should also check out the new  “battery free” to insure you always have a source of light when and if your electrical system should fail.    On my boat,  I have two of these battery free flashlights - fore and aft.  You simply shake these flashlights for 30 seconds and you’ll have 5 minutes of light and never worry about keeping your batteries replaced.

 

With the boating season only a few months away,  now is the time to prepare for all those wonderful boating day and nights soon to be upon us boaters.

 

Happy Boating!

 

 

 

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