Boat Lighting Products and Accessories

Marine Lighting Kits and Marine Lighting Accessories

PartsVu carries a wide assortment of marine lighting kits and marine lighting accessories, including navigation lighting kits, boat headlight kits, underwater lights, searchlights, distress signals, and much more. Shop products from leading brands including Aqua Signal, Attwood Marine, Marpac, Shadow-Caster Lighting DuraBrite, and many others. 

Looking for more boating and marine products? Check out our complete selection of Products and Accessories or our broader selection of Electrical and Lighting Accessories for Boats.

You can also shop boat lighting products and accessories by category, including: 

• Flashlights
• Dome Lighting
• Courtesy - Cabin - Chart Lights
• Spreader - Masthead - Deck - Floodlights
• Navigation Lights
• Anchor & All-Round Lights
• Underwater Lights
• Bulbs & Sockets
• Spotlights & Search Lights
• Docking Lights
• Light Bars

Boat Lighting Products and Accessories FAQs

What are combination trailer lights? 

What? How many boat trailer lights do I need on my trailer? While you must have lights and reflectors that achieve all the above-listed functions, combination lights are commonly used, significantly reducing the number of required components. For example, combination lighting units often serve as brake lights, taillights, turn signals, rear lights, rear side marker lights, and rear side reflectors. Likewise, front-side marker lights and front-side marker reflectors are commonly grouped together as front clearance lights.

How do you know which functions a combination trailer light serves?

While DOT on the light’s lens indicates that the device meets the US Department of Transportation requirement, a Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) code on a combination light’s lens will tell you for which functions the light is designed.

Should I use incandescent or LED boat trailer lights?

LED trailer lights have become the new standard. Their advantages include the following:

• Draw a fraction of the amperage that incandescent lights draw
• Operate at cooler temperatures
• Last longer
• More resistant to shock and vibration
• Typically brighter than incandescent lights
• Illuminate 2/10 of a second faster – which equates to 18′ when traveling at 65 mph
• Some LEDs are offered in voltage operating ranges allowing the lights on the trailer to operate regardless of whether the vehicle is putting out 12v or 24v.

Until fairly recently, the primary drawback of LED boat trailer lights was that they were expensive – commonly more than double their incandescent counterparts. However, this has changed and LED light pricing has come down substantially.

Are submersible trailer lights necessary?

For trailering and launching a boat, submersible trailer lights are necessary for the simple and perhaps obvious reason that the rear of the trailer, including your clearance lights, will be partially underwater.

You may be asking yourself why this is even a discussion point. The trailer lights and trailer light kits you can find at most hardware, home improvement, or farm and fleet-type stores can cause confusion. It is important to realize that these products are general trailer lights that are not submersible. They are great if you are hauling a utility trailer, a trailer with snowmobiles, or other non-marine applications where submersible lights are unnecessary.

For a boat trailer, non-submersible trailer lights will not be long for the world after one or two boat launches.

Do you need special lights for the boat trailer?

As per the law, trailer light requirements are defined based on the trailer size. Hence, trailers that are 80 inches wide or less must be equipped with tail lights, stop lights, turn signals, side marker lights as well as side and rear reflex reflectors, while boat trailers above the range of eighty inches must have additional lighting for better definition and determination of their shape at night.

Can you use regular trailer lights on a boat trailer?

Ideally no. After all, regular incandescent bulbs are not built to last underwater. Waterproof trailer lights with incandescent or waterproof LED lights are highly recommended.

How do I troubleshoot my boat trailer lights? 

Plug a tow vehicle tester into your vehicle’s tow connector to make sure the proper voltage is being pulled from the vehicle. You can buy testers very inexpensively from PartsVu or another retailer. If the tester does not light up, the problem is with the vehicle, not with the trailer’s wiring or other components on the trailer.

Clean your vehicle's tow hitch plug with an electronic contact cleaner and a little bit of sandpaper. Also, clean the connector plug. Spray the connector with an electrical contact cleaner and a little bit of sandpaper or an emery board to clean the contact pins. Finally, apply a little dielectric grease.

If the lights are dim, they only work sometimes, brake lights flash when the turn signal is turned on, or other strange things are happening, and you may have a ground wire problem. Actually, grounding problems are the cause of many boat trailer light wiring system problems, and it is a simple issue to fix.

Find the ground screw on the boat trailer — it is almost always a white wire. Disconnect it, clean the ground strap with fine sandpaper, spray with an electronic contact cleaner, and apply some dielectric grease to create a good contact. If the ground screw itself is corroded, replace it with a new one.

If you have incandescent trailer lights, it could be a bad trailer light bulb. Remove the bulb and clean the contacts with fine sandpaper, spray a little electronic contact cleaner, put a little dielectric grease on the base of a new bulb, and screw it in.

To clean corroded sockets, remove corrosion with fine sandpaper, and if you need to, use a small dowel to get into tight spaces. If the light still doesn’t work, you may have corrosion in the socket at the contact points.

Attach fine sandpaper to the end of the thin dowel – a hot glue gun works well for this. Clean the contact points by spinning the dowel and moving it side to side.

Spray with electronic contact cleaner, and finally, put a dab of dielectric grease on the contacts and insert the bulb. If the light still doesn’t work, check the mounting bolts for the light to make sure they’re making clean contact with the trailer frame.

If you see corrosion, remove it with your sandpaper and recheck the lights.

To protect your bulbs, some boaters advocate unplugging trailer lights from the trailer frame before submerging the trailer. Incandescent light bulbs get hot from use and a sudden dip in cold water can crack the bulb.

If you have LED trailer lights, they can certainly go bad. In theory, LED lights last for a very, very long time. However, theory and reality, especially within the harshness of the marine environment, can be two different things.

LED trailer lights are much more sensitive to needing the correct voltage, and you are relying on the ground connection between your tow vehicle wiring and the boat trailer to make sure the voltage is right.

If the ground is weak with an incandescent light bulb, the bulb typically lights dimly; however, LED lights are more prone to burning out when subjected to improper voltage. Also, always make sure to buy submersible trailer lights.

Light fixtures that are not designed to be submersible will likely not last long if they are LED or incandescent.

How do I check for breaks in my boat trailer lighting?

Connections are common failure points, so first check your trailer wiring system for wire connectors and 3M Scotchlocks. Then, closely inspect any points where running lights are installed as this wiring often passes directly through the metal frame and can chaff from vibration over time. If these more straightforward approaches are not working, you will need to check the trailer wiring by running a continuity test – connect a jumper wire to the connector pins and a continuity tester to the sockets.

A continuity tester contains a light bulb and a battery and the bulb lights when a circuit is working correctly. Test one wire at a time.

Alligator clips at the wire ends make continuity connections quick and easy. If the lights on one side still aren’t working, you may have a break in a wire.

To test for loose or damaged wires, check the color of the wire going to the socket and then find that wire on the connector in front. Clip one end of a long jumper wire to the connector pin and then clip the other end to the continuity tester.

If the light fails to go on, trace the wire and check for bare spots or breaks. If you find a break, cut the wire at the break, solder a new connection, and repair the insulation with heat-shrink tubing, which is available at any hardware store or home improvement center.