Good luck. Nothing really works. 

red or orange doesnt work, just put a lightbar on the hardtop, $80-$100 off Ebay gets a reasoable sized one.

I fitted one to watch for cray pots at night, works ok after 18 months.

 na not really, its mounted a wee bit back, just enough to shade most of the foredeck

 Don't have any deck lights on while underway--the "pool of light" effect will lock you in a little capsule and you won't see beyond it. As Rob H says, try to mount it so it won't reflect off anything, which actually usually means mounting well forward--high and back will light up foredeck, rails, etc. Actually mounting spots on the bowrail rather than a lightbar up high works much better,but looks daggy. But do you aim it for working on the plane or off the plane? Of course, mounting below bowrail means they are rather low, high is better. "sigh" compromises, compromises. Actually working the crayboat not just travelling)usually meant a big 240v halide flood up high, a 240v halide fixed spot (or 2) for penetration, and a moveable 24v halogen if you needed to look well off to the side.

Do you really want to have a light on while travelling at speed? Real chance of obstacles? We always used to run with a minimum of light to preserve our vision, spots would only be on if you knew there were going to be pots on your path (well, some of us did) or an actual fixed obstacle. Best vision of all was with everything off, instrument lights, navs--there is always ambient light at sea, unless there is a heavy overcast and no moon. I'm not recommending you run without nav lights, of course, but just an example.

 If you can screw some drop down brackets and weather proof led spotties just under the bowsprit you're on a winner, anywhere else you drown your external vision, canopy mountedlights are only good for coming alongside a pier or another vessel.

For fishing the big Rivers in the NT for me, it was always the deckie up the front of the tinnie with a Lightforce 170 in hand looking out for logs and rocks and using hand signals for the driver to know when and where to turn.

Problem was I was usually the deckie :-(

But did see plenty of other NT Barra boats with spotlights mounted up the front of the boat hanging upside down below the height of the gunwales.

Running at night. Use night vision, shooter's glasses (the yellow one's) and a spot light when needed with favourite eye closed. Fished very often in Dampier at night and travelling back the sea will show you obstacles as the wash off them creates a bright white outline if it is a little windy, and when glass obstacles are easy to see. Then if concerned spot them quickly with the LED spotty and avoid. Often travelled back from West Reef area at night through the Endersby cyclone moorings and never had an issue. Even with those blasted oil spillage barriers off there.

But then dont fang at night. Max speed about 15-20knots in safe areas like the shipping channels but mostly just cruise back enjoying the ride at 12kn.

Ive got 3 x 30 inch, 150 watt(12840 lumins each) light bars shooting fwd, and another 3 x square 60 watt (6500lumins each)floods over the aft/main deck.

Heading out from the ramp at before the crazy rush I just have the NSS running maps with the red screen, with minimum brightness and the fwd lights if there is cloud cover or stuff all moon. takes a bit to set them up at the right angles for when up on the plane. but once its sweet, ya cant beat massive outputs of light :)

You also need to be aware of people coming towards you also. There was a clown a couple of months ago whom was lit up like the sun coming back into woodmans point at 0600 in the morning. Blinded everyone around him.

I have bought a lot of stuff from these guys for boat/4WD and quads, even for house. They are on ebay also and you can pick up cheaper via ebay.

Never had any issues, they have a shop front in Vic ( my sister lives near them and has picked stuff up but I generally get is sent and they are good with postage).

http://www.brightlightautoparts.com/index.html

For what it is worth, after a few thousand miles of offshore yacht racing, a fair chunk of it at night, lights are a pain in the arse. Really kill your vision anywhere outside the beam of light.

Generally you can spot Cray pots, whales any anything else that can hurt your day just from the atmospheric light.

I tend to agree with Swompa, not that I have done anywhere as much night boating. One night doing the Mandurah canal xmas lights I was blinded by some "switched on bloke" with his big flash cruiser and his spotlights mounted on the bow. Then he abuses me for not having headlights!!! I really felt like touching up his nice gelcoat with the pointy end of my tinnie!!

On my boat we got an LED lightbar and we found it spreads the light pretty well but doesn't reach very far. You can only see 5 or so meters in front of you. We also tried a spot light. This lets you see longer distance but only lets you see a small circle at a time. As soon as you turn the lights on, anything that isn't directly in the path of the lights becomes impossible to see because the light ruins your night vision. There is usually a bit of a haze on top of the water at night when the water is warmer than the air. You can't see it normally but once you turn a spot light on it reflects back at you.

So eventually we just settled on dimming the screen on the GPS, and running without any lights (apart from nav lights). We normally fish around 3 mile at night and there is so much reflected light coming from the city that you don't have any problems spotting cray pots. You just need to give your eyes a bit of time to adjust.

 If you're doing river runs at night you're gonna want lighting to spot logs, stumps, rock bars etc. With a username like Barraslayer you'll know what I'm talking about!

I think DTrain covered it pretty well. I've got a light bar, two LED spotlights and a Guest spotlight up front and the very best thing to do with them is leave them turned off. They help with docking and reversing the trailer down and that's about it. I find I've got the head hanging out the side window like a dog a lot of the time as even with the electronics dimmed I still get to much refraction of the glass.

  Unless it's heavily overcast you can always see if you let your eyes adjust, with the usual disclaimer about slightly submerged reef/bar  in very calm water. and what you are actually looking through. Clears are obviously the worst, glass is next, and the very best of all is nothing between your eyes and the water.We were heading west from Kalbarri early in the noughties about 15 mile out in the dark and I could see something flickering to the south from the wheelhouse. Turned all the lights off, and it was the Aurora. Glass calm morning, I went back to idle and got the crew up, and we sat on the flybridge and watched a glorious show of rippling pink curtains across the sky.