Gavin Atkin's weblog for the sort of people who like looking inside boat sheds. It's about old boats, traditional boats, boat building, restoration, the sea and the North Kent Coast
Silent film of a lighthouse inspection made in 1963 by the Pharos VIII.
The main duties of this Northern Lighthouse Board ship included delivering of stores and supplies, buoy-working and the statutory inspection of the navigation aids on oil rigs in the Scottish sector.
The film begins at Granton, progresses through the waters off Sumburgh, Jarlshof, Whalsay, Pentland Skerries, Butt of Lewis, Lochinver and Suilven, Neist Point and finishes at Ardnamurchan and Lismore.
My thanks to fellow Hollowshore cruising sailor Paul Tambini for passing this one along…
‘A requiem has been written to mark the passing from use of the last of the UK’s working foghorns, which for the last 150 years have warned shipping about dangerous shorelines and other hazards during foggy conditions. An armada of boats will be taking part in the performance, with their ships’ horns joining three brass bands on shore, plus the star of the event – the foghorn at Souter Lighthouse.
‘Artists Lise Autogena and Joshua Portway have teamed up with composer Orlando Gough to create The Foghorn Requiem, which will be given a single live performance on the North Sea coast on June 22 as part of the Festival of The North East.’
It sounds like a fun event off Sunderland. Read about the lighthouse here.
I gather all the foghorns are going, and I do worry that cutting long standing maritime safety measures in this way assumes every vessel is fitted with GPS, that it’s working, and that it’s being used – and I know that isn’t always true. Batteries run out, including in mobile phones, and chartplotters are expensive and difficult to power in very small vessels with no power system.
And then we have to ask – just how much is turning off this foghorn going to help the nation get out of debt?
And I must say I will miss the foghorns. I’ve always particularly enjoyed the North Foreland light’s slow,deep and tragi-comic cry of ‘Briiiiiaaaaaannnnnnn’.
What’s going to happen next? No more bells and horns on buoys? I don’t want my world any greyer than it has already become thankyou…
