Visible stars from the UK (with no light pollution)

Hi everyone,
I was just wondering if anyone with any experience of viewing
magnitude 1 stars from the UK (with no light pollution and no moon)
could have a look at the following thread and see if it makes sense:

http://titanic-model.com/dc/dcboard....82 &mode=full

(do a search for message ID 19008 for the full discussion). Theres a
lot of optical detail that makes some sense to me, but when it
mentioned that such-and-such a light should have the same brightness
as a mag.1 star at a range of 17 miles, I thought I would ask and see
if it is possible (I suspect that is).

TIA

Paul