A better way to light your boat’s engine compartment

Your boat’s engine compartment could use some light

Yup, boat engine compartments are dark.

Even in the middle of the day, it can be tricky to see everything in there. At the end of the day, when the light is fading, it gets even harder.

You may know exactly what you’re looking for. You just need enough light to see it.

That’s one of the reasons we started looking at Night Owl Lighting for boats.

Put the service lights where you need them

We originally developed Night Owl Light to illuminate race cars. The kit has five service lights that are permanently mounted on the vehicle and powered by a tool battery.

For a boat, the same lights can be flat-mounted inside and around the engine hatch.

You choose the places that make sense for your boat. Once the lights are installed, they stay there.

This isn’t a portable work light that you need to balance somewhere or keep moving around. When you need to work on your boat, attach the battery and flip the switch. Now you can see everything in the compartment.

Save the boat battery

The Night Owl Lighting kit doesn’t need power from the boat battery. That’s useful during regular maintenance.

It can be even more useful when you’re trying to figure out an electrical or starting problem!

Maybe you’ve been out on the water all day. You’ve been running music, electronics and other accessories. Now the boat doesn’t want to start. The battery might be the problem. It might not.

Either way, you don’t need to draw more power from it just to see what you’re doing.

The service lights run from their own Milwaukee battery. You can open the engine hatch, flip the switch on and see the issue. better. Because now you have some decent lighting.

From the race track to the water

The boat idea came up while we were talking about Night Owl with some racers.

A lot of people in the racing community are into more than one kind of vehicle. Some have boats. Some have side-by-sides. Most of them work on their own toys. As we talked about Illuminate, someone pointed out that the same idea made sense in a boat.

The engine compartment is dark. Good lighting makes it easier to work. And there are many good reasons to use a separate power source instead of the boat battery.

So we started looking at flat-mount installations for boats.

It doesn’t have to be the engine compartment

We expect most boat owners will install the five lights in and around the engine compartment. That’s an obvious place to use them.

But every boat is different. If there’s another dark service area where you regularly work or need to see clearly, that’s where a light may make more sense. The point is to install the lights where you’ll actually need them.

We’re still testing

Night Owl started with a simple problem at the race track and has grown as we’ve talked to more people about how they work on their vehicles.

We’re still testing the products and looking at different ways people might use them.

If you’re interested, sign up for the Steel Sasquatch newsletter. We’ll share new products as they develop, ask for feedback and look for people to test products in real vehicles.

And if you’re already thinking about where you’d put five service lights in your boat, we’d be interested in hearing that too.