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Sharing the bay with power boats, sail boats, fishing boats, water taxis, ferries ...

A seagull greets arriving kayakers at Fairhaven Boatworks at dusk.

How To Improve Kayak Visibility

Updated November 3, 2005

Bellingham Bay is shared by sailboats, power boats, fishing boats (with long floating tangly nets), commercial cargo ships, the Alaska State Ferry, water taxis and sea kayaks. Can you guess which one is usually the slowest and hardest to see? And in the winter, sunset comes early so I sometimes find myself paddling home at dusk or at night. Here are some things I have done to improve my visibility.

Reflective Tape

The folks at LFS marine supply store here in Bellingham have been a great help. They introduced me to U. S. Coast Guard approved 3M 3150A SOLAS (Safety Of Life At Sea) marine reflective tape. I used it to add some tasteful striping above the water line along the sides from bow to stern and now the boat lights up incredibly well when anything shines on it. I also affixed some on the paddle blades, on the deck (visible from the air) and on the flatter underside of the hull (visible from the air if capsized) thanks to a tip from Savvy Paddler and the good example set by my friend John from WAKE.

This image is a starboard view of my kayak after pulling it onto a dock at night. The 3M SOLAS tape does a wonderful job making the size and position of the kayak visible at impressive distances if light is shined toward it. Notice the green navigation light (discussed below) and the reflective tape on my paddle hovering above the aft deck. Reflective tape on the moving paddle blades proved to be particularly eye-catching.

Fluorescent Tape

One evening I was racing the sunset and noticed that the most visible objects on the bay at the time were fluorescent floats. It wasn't dark enough yet for the LED navigation lights to show up well and the reflective tape isn't very effective unless someone is shining a light at it. My paddle top and PFD are yellow but I've read that fluorescent colors are four times brighter than regular colors.

The answer so far is to put fluorescent tape on the paddles in addition to the strip of reflective tape. The paddle movement makes them very visible in low light. I wanted fluorescent yellow so it would look ok with my paddle top and PFD and finally found some at ReflectivelyYours.

This is a photo of one blade with and one without the fluorescent yellow tape at dusk. (Click for a larger image.) I'm surprised at how much brighter the fluorescent tape looks in low light. So far the reflective and fluorescent tape has held on while paddling in 50-degree salt-water and bouncing around in the back of my van with the other gear.

Paddling Lights

After dark lights become effective. Following basic safety guidelines I keep a headlamp in my PFD pocket and one of those ACR Firefly Emergency Strobes attached to my PFD. I know wearing the headlamp would be smart but I don't like wearing anything on my head. (I must have had my head stuck between the bars of my crib as a baby or something equally traumatic.) So I'm trying various other things.

Around here people use chemical light sticks for occasional night paddling. But since I wanted to use them frequently I bought a couple of Krill battery-powered light sticks from Kriana and use velcro to attach them to my PFD. Like most things they cost more to start with but are cheaper to use in the long run. Fellow paddlers at a recent group night paddle liked them. The Kriana folks say the "Extreme 180 Krill" has the light output of a 12-hour chemical light stick after one hour, but burns at that intensity for 50+ hours on two AA batteries and has a useful life of about 3000 hours. I bought blue ones so they wouldn't get confused with navigation lights. They're great for spotting each other in a sheltered area but I wanted something more likely to be seen by a boater on open water so...

First I tried out a poor man's running light, thanks to an idea from Zach at Fairhaven Boatworks. (Click for larger image.) I glued a solar-powered LED garden light to a base of closed-cell foam with 3M 5200 Marine Adhesive, and then used Velcro to hold it on the deck when paddling at night. This particular light held on well and survived choppy seas so I posted the photo to www.kayakforum.com and got plenty of good feedback. Some expressed a spirited concern over lighting regulations for water craft and others wanted something that would be brighter and survive a roll. So I sifted through the opinions and checked in with our local Coast Guard station and here's what I'm using these days...

On the aft deck, a rear-facing 180-degree white solar garden light. (Click for larger image.) This is brighter than the first one and has aluminum foil (covered by all-weather duct tape) covering half the lens. It isn't really submersible but it has survived wind, rain and waves. We'll see how long it lasts.

On either side of the forward deck near the cockpit are these TekTite LED marker lights, thanks to a tip from Kris on kayakforum. (Click for larger image.)

This is a night view from the front of the kayak. I had originally dismissed these LEDs as too dim, based on past experience with a different product, but I had grossly underestimated the size and brightness of these lights. The cambered deck of my Chesapeake LT 17 ensures that only the red light is visible from port (left) and only the green light is visible from the starboard (right). Pipe insulation on the handle held with all-weather duct tape makes these float. The TekTite LEDs cost a lot more than the garden lights but they are bright, fully waterproof, easy to manage from the cockpit and perform well in a roll. As always, I'll post more as I learn more.