With GPS systems and other geographical technology being as sophisticated as it now is, do lighthouses still serve an integral purpose? Are they more now just in case the captain/crew lapses on the monitoring of navigation systems? Obviously lighthouses are more immediate and I guess tangible, but do they still fulfil a purpose beyond mitigating basic human error?
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Redundancy is the big reason.
Why do we even have windows on ships if we can just stare at a GPS? Visual is a great indicator to get your bearing.
Remember that GPS only figures out your position and movement over ground. In maritime navigation we do need to know where the bow is pointing, which might be a completely different direction when we are affected by currents and wind.
In my neck of the woods we do have a foreign power that likes to jam GPS/GLONASS/GALILEO every so often, so I would not be casting away without the skills and means to navigate without satellites.
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