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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Ok, this is one I can answer. When you are navigating a ship, the more methods you have of fixing your position the better.
With modern GPS and electronic chart systems, there are rarely huge faults, but as you may have an oil tanker with 22 men on board and 150,000 tonnes of crude oil, a rare fault could lead to absolute disaster.
So, when driving a ship, you also use other methods which could be:
A) Celestial navigation — using the stars/planets to work out where you are – only accurate enough for deep sea work really. The best celestial fix I ever got at sea matched the GPS by around a tenth of a mile, but that was with practicing almost every day for weeks.
B) Compass directions (bearings) — take the direction (bearing) of three objects at the same time using the ship’s comapss, then draw the lines on the chart, and where they all cross (if you got a good fix) that’s where you are.
C) Soundings (depth of water) — really only good for knowing your progress along a line if you know the depths.
D) Radar — either you can use the same method as b, but use radar bearing, or you just match the lad on your radar screen to the chart.
There are some others, but mainly you use GPS, and B and D as back ups. Which now means if you want to take a visual bearing of something at night, you need it to have a light. So basically a lighthouse gives a very defined and identifiable point from which to take a compass bearing.
As an aside, every light house in a certain section of shore will have a different rhythm and tempo, which the chart will tell you, so that you know which light house you are looking at. Some will also have light sectors, which will show different colours depending on the direction you are looking at them.
There are some more complex uses, but I’ll keep it as that for an (admittedly complex) ELI5 answer.
They’re still helpful, as street signs are, plus they look pretty. Utilitarianism has managed to destroy everything but the coastline it seems.
Lighthouses also serve as places to launch rescues and do radio relay when there’s trouble — an hour or two out of port around here, you may or may not have interference because of all our islands and mountains, so radio isn’t always reliable long-range. Lighthouses (at least, the manned ones that are left) have been lifesaving in not a few recent marine disasters, doing response and rescue coordination between the local first nations and the CG for example, or just being able to relay maydays from recreational boaters in trouble.
Also, the automated weather stations are getting smarter, but there really isn’t any substitute for a human reporting and recording conditions.
Some of the posts are lonely, a friend grew up on one and had helicopter supply drops every month, and one year the pilot dressed up as Santa for him, but he said it was an amazing place to grow up. They rescued a few boats in trouble, and also did some important work reporting wave heights, environmental conditions, and local wildlife counts.
They’re still helpful, as street signs are, plus they look pretty. Utilitarianism has managed to destroy everything but the coastline it seems.
They’re still helpful, as street signs are, plus they look pretty. Utilitarianism has managed to destroy everything but the coastline it seems.
Lighthouses also serve as places to launch rescues and do radio relay when there’s trouble — an hour or two out of port around here, you may or may not have interference because of all our islands and mountains, so radio isn’t always reliable long-range. Lighthouses (at least, the manned ones that are left) have been lifesaving in not a few recent marine disasters, doing response and rescue coordination between the local first nations and the CG for example, or just being able to relay maydays from recreational boaters in trouble.
Also, the automated weather stations are getting smarter, but there really isn’t any substitute for a human reporting and recording conditions.
Some of the posts are lonely, a friend grew up on one and had helicopter supply drops every month, and one year the pilot dressed up as Santa for him, but he said it was an amazing place to grow up. They rescued a few boats in trouble, and also did some important work reporting wave heights, environmental conditions, and local wildlife counts.
Lighthouses also serve as places to launch rescues and do radio relay when there’s trouble — an hour or two out of port around here, you may or may not have interference because of all our islands and mountains, so radio isn’t always reliable long-range. Lighthouses (at least, the manned ones that are left) have been lifesaving in not a few recent marine disasters, doing response and rescue coordination between the local first nations and the CG for example, or just being able to relay maydays from recreational boaters in trouble.
Also, the automated weather stations are getting smarter, but there really isn’t any substitute for a human reporting and recording conditions.
Some of the posts are lonely, a friend grew up on one and had helicopter supply drops every month, and one year the pilot dressed up as Santa for him, but he said it was an amazing place to grow up. They rescued a few boats in trouble, and also did some important work reporting wave heights, environmental conditions, and local wildlife counts.
In addition to redundancy and emergency use, it is good to keep the old skills alive. The US Navy is bringing back manual navigation (sextants, “mo board’s” and other non technology reliant tools).
In 2007 us Navy ships started relying on computer aided navigation and plotting, but over the years s have had a number of navigation errors. There are many reasons, but one of them is the fact that the technology brings inattention. (If you are required to “shoot a fix” every 5 min on landmarks and fixed points like lighthouses your attention is on the navigation). Some other reasons are cyber attacks and redundancy In case the computer aided methods fail. It is always good to have a manual backup, a fact that the younger generations never learned..
Here is an article on the navy teaching sextant use again.
https://www.stripes.com/news/break-out-the-sextant-navy-teaching-celestial-navigation-again-1.391219
One solid solar storm and kiss that GPS goodbye. It seems good to have backup when lives and (dangerous) cargo are at stake.
What do you do when your fancy technology fails? You want backup. So many people rely so heavily on their GPS, phones, computers, etc. that they have no idea how to read physical maps, use a card catalog at a library, do math long hand, cook food etc. These are the same people who would be absolutely helpless in a catastrophic event because they couldn’t feed or shelter themselves much less fight off the zombies.
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