Boats are brighter than ever, above and below the waterline. Thanks to the ever-shrinking, yet super-powerful LED, underwater lights now show up on boats of all sizes.
Thru-hull underwater lights emerged more than a decade ago and have grown increasingly mainstream, while incorporating new technological features into vessels ? and even evolving into fish-catching tools.
?The market was driven originally through aesthetics and entertainment appeal,? says Les Ares, vice president of sales at Lumishore, a Welsh-based company that made its entry into the U.S. market in 2011. ?Now, it?s much more functional. Fishermen can create custom strobe and light patterns. We?re working on the next level, too, where you will have several preset functions in your MFDs (multi-function displays) that optimize color and strobing patterns for specific species of fish or bait.?
LEDs became the default product early on, preferred over incandescent and halogen bulbs because their robust qualities were ideal for marine environments. Over the years, their light output (commonly measured in lumens) and overall efficacy greatly improved, while manufacturers developed products that generated tighter, more penetrating beam angles and, eventually, multiple colors.
It all added up to greater light distribution under the water?s surface and more attractive displays from the docks, with product lifespans typically lasting 40,000 hours.
?A well-manufactured LED light should last around 30,000 to 50,000 hours,? says Alexandra Bader, vice president of sales and marketing at Aqualuma LED Lighting. ?I?ve had customers who have had our lights on for four years straight and never turned them off. No joke!?
That said, it?s not just the LED lifespan that needs to be considered, says Nicole Squartino, marketing director at OceanLED, one of the first companies to emerge in the underwater-lighting scene in 2005. ?The light housing and driver electronics also have to be taken into account for the overall lifetime of the product,? she says.
Construction and integrity of the entire luminaire is vital, as is regular maintenance, to get the most of our underwater lights. ?General maintenance means keeping them barnacle-free and dry inside the hull whenever possible,? says Bader, noting that Aqualuma has always relied on a polycarbonate, one-piece injected molded housing for their thru-hull light, which has helped greatly in that regard. ?(Marine-grade aluminum) looks pretty and shiny on the shelf,? she says, ?but we all know what happens to it once under salt water for a period of time.?
?With lesser expensive products, it?s often not the LED itself that fails, but the housing that surrounds it. If there?s metal used, and it?s inferior, you?ll get water intrusion into the vessel,? says Ares.
INTO THE FUTURE ? AND FISHING
Perhaps the biggest innovation in the underwater lighting realm has been the implementation of DMX512, a standard protocol for digital communication networks originally developed to control stage lighting and effects.
First used in controlling light dimmers, the DMX512 signal is a set of 512 separate intensity levels (channels) that are constantly being updated, and it has become the gold standard when it comes to controlling ?intelligent? lighting products.
The DMX512 system quickly gravitated into architectural lighting projects, such as accent lighting and high-end residential lighting. Eventually it moved into underwater LED lighting systems and opened up a world of technological change.
?It allowed so many things,? says Ares, ?including integrating sound, customization of strobing and controllers that, through simple interfacing, allow the customer to quickly learn the entire system.?
This new system also facilitated interaction with other consumer electronics. ?The ability to have any color and complete control over what color and scene you desire via your smartphone is where the industry is moving towards,? says Squartino, noting that OceanLED?s new OceanDMX Mobile App and Controller allows boaters the freedom to create their own customizations from a mobile device or tablet.
Knowing how to program your underwater lights can lead to more bites. ?While working with our professional angler staff teams,? says Squartino, ?we?ve learned that LED lights attract fish and bait. They catch all their bait before tournaments. Baitfish swarm around lights, and in different water quality, and we?ve found they like different colors. We are hoping to work more closely this year with a local oceanographic team to learn more about these colors.?
VESSEL TRENDS
Just as the actual LED products themselves have evolved over the years, the types of boats they are commonly used in have been expanding ? as have the number of actual lights per boat.
New sport-fishers generally feature $12,000 to $50,000 worth of lights, says Ares, whose company sells fixtures that range in price from $200 to $15,000 each.?We?ve steadily seen an increase in the number of units per vessel over the years,? he says. ?Traditionally, you had two or three lights on a sport-fish, now the average is about five fixtures per boat.?
But big, ocean-going boats aren?t the only types of craft that are getting into the act. More and more smaller boats are popping up with the colorful lights.
?As the costs for underwater lights have become more affordable, this opens the market for smaller boats to have them,? says Squartino. For about $2,600, a 24-foot center console can be outfitted with two OceanLED Xtreme XP8 DMX series lights and an OceanDMX Mobile App and Controller, offering hands-free, limitless color-change ability.
?In a 24-foot console with an 8-foot beam,? says Bader, ?I would put three of our 12 Series or four of our 6 Series lights. Either package is about $2,800 retail.? The lights also enhance and increase a boat?s resale value.
Boat owners install the majority of the underwater lights on boats 25 feet and less but as you move up to 30 feet and above more boat builders install them at the factory or offer them as an option. There are many options available to help take some of the worry out of an owner before drilling a hole in a boat including a light that can right into the boat?s drain plug.
Will every boat in the future be equipped with underwater LED lighting? That?s tough to say ? then again, it?s doubtful anyone could have predicted the rise of these products 25 years ago. If they continue to help tournament anglers catch bait, our money is on more growth in this segment.
