What action is most effective in ensuring visibility when boating at night?

Using navigation lights and maintaining a proper lookout is the most effective action for ensuring visibility when boating at night. Navigation lights are essential for signaling your presence and intentions to other vessels. They provide crucial information about the direction your vessel is facing and its movement, helping to prevent collisions in low visibility conditions.

In addition to using navigation lights, maintaining a proper lookout is critical for safety. This involves being vigilant and attentive to the surrounding environment, which includes listening for sounds and looking for other boats, buoys, and any obstacles that may not be easily visible in the dark. This dual approach—proper lighting and active observation—ensures not only your visibility but also enhances the safety of everyone on board and other waterway users.

The other options fail to incorporate both lighting and observation elements that are fundamental to being safe while boating at night. Only using a flashlight may provide limited visibility for the person operating the vessel but does not enhance visibility for others. Turning off all lights might help avoid distractions but can leave the boat and its surroundings completely invisible, posing significant risks. Using colored lights for show-off, while potentially visually interesting, does not provide the necessary navigational information and can confuse other boaters about your boat's intentions.