20-22 knots on the ICW at night sounds pretty negligent to me, spotlight or not. The few times I run in the dark (usually just before sunrise to get an early start), I run at four or five knots or so. Not so fast that I can't stop in the distance I can see ahead of the boat.
It may just be a southeast thing, but the waterways where I boat are littered with crab pot floats. Hit one and there's a good chance the line will get tangled in your prop and require a tow and a diver. Avoiding black crab pot floats at night is difficult even at four knots. Impossible at twenty knots.
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