Bridge Lighting

Extract

The fundamental necessities of efficient bridge and chartroom lighting, which matter appears to have been ignored even on many of the latest vessels, are the provision of:

1. Adequate illumination of all instruments in a uniform manner.

2. Efficient illumination of the chart.

3. A reduction of the high contrast of light values between chartroom and wheelhouse and the elimination of the sources of glare.

These three essentials can be combined to render the overall illumination of the navigating bridge efficient and practical, whether the ship has a separate chartroom and wheelhouse or the more modern chartroom and wheelhouse combined.

All bridge instruments, such as clocks, compasses, telegraphs and the numerous indicators, should be made to a uniform specification—all with ‘back’ or ‘edge’ illumination provided by red lamps. Where practicable these instruments should have black dials with white lettering. An extra refinement is to have the lettering painted with a luminous paint. Illuminating the instruments in this manner would also afford a certain amount of illumination to the otherwise dark navigating position. This would in turn tend to alleviate the high contrast of light between the chart area, which of necessity must be lit, and the total darkness outside.