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Originally Posted by jrc
Obviously good words to live by but not practical in every case. On a cloud covered moonless night your visibilty is near zero, you would have to stop. People have been boating at night for hundreds of years with charts to identify fixed objects and lights to mark moving objects. If everyone follows the rules, it works pretty well. It will always be more dangerous than daylight boating, but if you get in the boat you chose to take the risk.
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With poor visibility, you don't need to stop. You would need to go slow enough to overcome any loss of night vision caused by cockpit lighting or chart plotter lighting, That speed will still get you to your destination and if it's less than 10 or 15 miles per hour, a collision's impact would be minimal on whatever is struck.
Airwaves: Kayaks without lighting after dark are always going to be wrong in a legal sense. But it's like the unanticipated night time jaywalker. When machine strikes man, it's a major burden to have to carry for life even when it's legal.