It was more like a joke from my companion with whom I was sailing recently (read about our one-week adventure in foul weather sailing here and here) when he helped me out with his biro after I discovered I had left my writing utensils at home and wanted to do some logbook entries: He handed me a pen. But a special one: This thingy was equipped with a small LED-light. He smiled: “Now you can do your log entries at night without switching on all the lights in your boat, possibly waking up off duty crew members enjoying their well-deserved dreams.” Sounds logic.
The biro just looks like any ordinary one. One click and the ball-ben will jump out, ready to write. Two more another clicks and the ball-pen is ready but with a LED-light switched on. What a time to be alive! You know me, I am a sort of traditional guy and I do regular log entries when I am skipper and – lucky we were – as at this time it was end of October, days already growing short and our Beneteau First 30 R racing-edition didn´t actually had any cabin lights at all, this pen was really helpful. Well, was it?
It will indeed light up the area on the very papers you are writing onto sufficiently and helps to find the line to write on. But, to be honest, it of course fails to light up all the area you would need in order to do your log entry properly: Mostly, you need to check a position on a naval chart, look at some notes taken on scrap sheets, check weather forecasts or other instruments. So, I guess, it´s a nice gift to a sailor but out there on the seas, a proper chart table should of course better be fitted with a chart table light, maybe able to switch from white to red light. Anyway, I liked the gadget and my companions generous offer to give it to me as a present (Thanks again for that, my friend:)
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