Why would a MOB pole be orange??

[Alan Wheeler]

No don't get me wrong, I don't give two hoots about the fuzzles.
It's the possible newbies that read a rediculouse comment like his that I am more worried about.
But that aside, as Kai Nui said, I posted this because I thought it would be interesting and fun to talk about and something we can all learn from. Thats also why I hope this thread becomes more broad reaching than JUST a MOB pole. I think it has taken some interesting turns already and hope it will do so some more.

Wheels, with the new epoxy bottom paint, can it be tinted?
A nice Dayglo green might not look bad, and as I said, 800 square would be easy (comparitively) to spot.

[Alan Wheeler]

Yep you can tint Epoxy Paint. But I don't know where you would buy those fluro tints from, nor what kinda Base colour the paint would need to be for something like that. I imagine fluro colours are some synthetic material. Most paint tints are from natural sources.
I imagine the copper powder would give the flouro and interesting effect.

[Catamount]

Don't know about tints for epoxy paints, but Pettit makes a bright-color antifouling bottom paint:


http://www.pettitpaint.com/vivid.asp

Disclaimer: I have no experience with this product, nor any interest in it, just trying to bring it to the attention of anyone who might be interested but not aware of its existence.

Regards,

Tim

[BC Mike]

I was going to make my storm jib black, but now I think I will make it yellow. Have to check to see what colours are available.
I will use heavy reinforced plastic type material. The sail will also serve as the on deck marker, the hole in the hull cover, as a drogue, and as the bathtub when used in the cockpit.
Michael

[Alan Wheeler]

Our NZ Cat1 requirements state the Stormsail has to be Rescue Orange

[Starbuck]

I assumed that I knew your motivation. I was wrong. Anyone ever notice how those two things seem to show up together?

I'm encouraged. The world needs less vanity. And fruitcake. Definitely less fruitcake.

[Alan Wheeler]

Yeeeup. And people have been shot for reasons like that. For instance, Cpt Cook and some poor Maori dude giving a welcome, Cpt Cook and some poor Tahitian dude giving a welcome, a bunch of Tahitians that misinterpreted Cpt Cook, fisherman in Indonesia just wanting to trade fish but the sailors come from a land were wearing a Black Beleclaver means something quite different and so on and so on.

[sneuman]

I have often wondered about the issue of hull color too. It's difficult to balance personal preferences with safety - and having a hull that others can see in a rescue (or collision-avoidance) situation could well be regarded as a safety issue. Further, in the tropics especially heat absorbtion (sp?) also comes into play. Eroica's hull is blue, but a buddy of mine has a red hull - his obviously stands out better.

Having said that, I now believe the flourescent yellow is more visible than rescue orange - at least on the water. Nothing scientific to back that up, it just seems that way to me.

Good topic, Allan, especially as it applies to hull color. It's probably something we should think about more in making that choice.

[BC Mike]

I checked on material colour today and it is available in yellow so that is what I will use.
Regarding hull colour. Many years ago a fellow who had drifted in a dinghy with his family for a while, was also thinking about that. He wondered if the whale that smashed his mother ship, did not like the colour. I do not know what the hull colour was but might assume it was copper. And I did not ask the owner of Snow White 2 what the hull colour of Snow White 1 was. It go rammed by a whale.
Michael

[Alan Wheeler]

Interesting point Mike, but then I know of several boats sunk by whales and they had what we would call "traditional" colours.

So now, can someone tell me why a Fluro colour is fluro. Hmm, mabe not well worded. I am not talking about flurescence as in, can glow in the dark, I mean, why do these oranges and greens glow or tend to be so bright in the daylight. Is it JUST that it is a wave length that our eye sight is most efficient in, or are there other facters as well.

[Alan Wheeler]

Hmmm, and to add another point, at night if you turn on the mast spreader lights and light up the sails, will white stand out the most, or will these bright fabrics really shine in total darkness under the light??

[GordMay]

Fluorescence and Phosphorescence are two different phenomenae.
Fluorescence is the phenomenon in which absorption of light of a given wavelength (invisible UV) by a fluorescent molecule is followed by the emission of light at longer (Visible) wavelengths. This has the effect of increasing reflectivity.
Phosphorescent substances have the ability to store up light and release it gradually, even after the radiation causing it has ceased. This is the “glow-in-the-dark” effect.

As previously stated, the most reflective Colours are in the middle of the visible spectrum - Orange, Yellow, Green.
The most reflective Surfaces are smooth textured, such as a mirror.
The visibility of an artificially lighted object will be enhanced by matching the colour of the light source to the colour of the object. A typical Halogen lamp, as utilized in a spreader light, emits a light of 3200 K to 3400 K which corresponds to Yellow in the spectral distribution chart.

[Alan Wheeler]

Thanks Gord.

[Lodesman]

I'm surprised the issue is the colour of the spar, when the danbuoy at the centre of this argument is painted blue and white. Quite frankly, I tend to agree with the argument that there is no appreciable difference between an orange spar and a grey one. The spar after all is only a couple of inches in diameter - beyond half a cable, it's invisible to the human eye, regardless of its colour. Even using binoculars, it would be like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. This is not necessarily the case with a boat’s hull, which is more likely to stand out only because it is a larger object. Again the colour doesn’t matter so much as its shade. Want proof - from a distance all buoys look the same. You’ll notice that the shades used for buoys (red, green and yellow) are all of a medium shade, not particularly dark, nor particularly light. It might be mentioned that before IALA stepped in, many authorities used black buoys vice green. So why did they pick green?, you ask.

While all the aforementioned dissertations about colour and visible spectrum et al. is perfectly valid, it fails to address the heart of the matter, in what really makes something stand out against the seascape – that is contrast. From the boat-deck perspective, 98 percent of the time, the background (sea and sky) is going to be either light or dark, or some combination thereof. It’s infrequent that the background is a mid-range hue, such as a medium blue or red sky at dusk, etc. Against a dark background, a white-painted object would stand out the best, but against a light background a black object would be most visible. Even fluorescent yellow tends to blend into a light background. Painting an object in a medium shade (of any colour) gives the best compromise between light and dark. Picking a colour other than grey or blue gives the best contrast between the typical background colours. I say ‘typical’, because seascapes can also be varying shades of yellow, red, green, brown or even purple. Why do you think warships are painted grey or blue-grey? Look at different navies and you will notice different shades of grey; the USN uses a medium dark grey, which blends into the surroundings in the typical tropical to mid-latitude waters in which they operate, while Canada paints its ships a lighter almost toothpaste-coloured grey that is near impossible to distinguish from the background in the higher latitudes.

Reflectivity has been mentioned in past posts. Fluorescent paints contain phosphors, which convert non-visible spectrums of light into visible light, which makes them apparently more reflective. Better than that is retro-reflective material, which contains microscopic glass beads – these act like thousands of tiny reflecting dishes that return most of the light shone at them, and would be most visible when using a searchlight or flare. Based on our road signs, retro-reflective material comes in a variety of colours too. I think 3M has retro-reflective tape which looks grey in normal light – now both parties can be happy.

If I was making a recommendation to cruisers on what colours to use for their man overboard markers (danbuoys), I would recommend using retro-reflective paint and contrast the buoy and the spar, making one light and one dark. For example, I would paint the buoy's body bright yellow and the spar black. Or I might paint the buoy dark red and the spar white. If you really want it to be visible day or night, you should mount a battery operated strobe-light at the top of the spar, that activates on launch.
My two cents – I’m open to comments.

Kevin