Attwood 911490-1 Navigation Light Pole Base 2-Wire

This is the plug-in deck base your Attwood pole light drops into. It's the black plastic receptacle, not the light itself, and it does one job well. It gives you a clean, wired mounting point so a removable navigation pole light seats the same way every time. If you've ever fought a hard-wired pole light that had to come off for trailering or storage, you already know why a proper base matters. This is the fix.

Attwood built this one as a 2-wire combination base. It carries two pins, a factory V-adapter, and about 7-1/2 inches of hard wire lead coming off the bottom. That short pigtail is your splice point. You run it into the nav light circuit you already have, match positive to positive and negative to negative, and the pole light powers up as soon as it's seated. Simple.

One more note on the wiring. It's a 2-wire setup, so it's built for single-function lights and for bi-color heads that run off two conductors. Keep your polarity straight and use tinned, marine-grade wire for the run back to the switch. Heat-shrink the splice. Salt water finds every bare copper strand eventually.

Fitment is the thing to get right. This base is made for Attwood's plug-in pole light families: the 5110 Series frosted globe, the 5570 Series LED anti-glare navigation pole lights, the 5091 Series bi-color, and the 5300 Series anti-glare lights. If your light is one of those, the 2-pin pattern lines up and the pole locks in. Running the 5091 bi-color up front? Mount the base at a height where the light throws its red and green arcs the way it should, so you stay legal after dark.

The footprint is rectangular, 4-1/4 inches long by 1-1/2 inches wide. That flat rectangle sits nicely on a flat windshield frame, a squared-off gunwale cap, or a deck pad. On a rounded rail or a curved gunwale it can leave a small gap at the corners, so a lot of guys back it with a thin mounting plate or a couple of shims to spread the load and keep it from flexing. Fiberglass flexes too, so if you're bedding it into a thin deck, a backing plate underneath is cheap insurance.

A couple of real-world install notes from folks who've wired plenty of these. First, the 7-1/2 inch leads are short. They're meant to be a starting point, not a full run to the panel, so plan on splicing in tinned marine wire before you route through the deck. Second, those pins live outside in salt air. A dab of dielectric grease on the pins at install keeps corrosion from creeping in and saves you from the flicker that shows up a season later. Third, seat the pole squarely. If the 2-pin alignment is off, the pole can wobble in a chop, and nobody wants a nav light waving around at 25 knots.

Some boaters like to add an inline 2-pin connector between the base leads and the boat wiring, so the whole pole and base assembly lifts out for cleaning or winter storage without cutting anything. That's optional, but it's a nice touch on a boat that gets trailered a lot.

Who's this for? Anyone replacing a cracked or corroded base under an existing Attwood pole light, or anyone rigging a fresh nav light setup on a skiff, center console, or small cruiser. The black plastic keeps it low-key against dark rails and consoles. It ships in bulk packaging as the base only, so you'll pair it with the pole light you already run or buy separately. Keep in mind plastic bases can chalk or crack after a few hard seasons in strong sun, so if your boat lives on a lift in full exposure, check it now and then and swap it when it starts to look tired.

Bottom line: it's an honest, inexpensive part that fixes a common headache. Get the right light family, back it up on a flexy surface, grease the pins, and keep your polarity straight. Do that and it'll give you a solid, removable nav light mount for years.