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?
In: 5120
Defense in depth.
Just imagine that it’s cloudy and stormy, and you’re racing to get to safe berth, and your gps and radio navigation go out. Sure it doesn’t happen often. But it could happen.
You *think* you know where you are. You’re pretty confident. But you know that if you’re wrong you could end up broken up on rocks and lost in the storm. Everything is pitch black, still no instruments, nothing to go by except dead reckoning and maybe your compass…
… and then a flash hits you. From the lighthouse. From the beam size and the location you can now figure pretty accurately where you are, adjust course, and avoid certain death on the rocks that were just out of sight.
Still seem unneccessary?
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