The U.S. Coast Guard installed a new LED beacon into the Gay Head Lighthouse in Aquinnah on Wednesday morning, the last major step in an eight-month long restoration project.
The lighthouse has been dark since November when the town began to repair structural issues in the curtain wall and lantern deck, which rusted over time. Now, the lantern deck is freshly coated in white paint and the windows are clear.
“This is a happy day for Aquinnah,” said Jim Pickman, the chair of the lighthouse advisory board.
Lighthouse keeper Chris Manning said there are still some finishing touches left. A railing needs to be reinstalled and the lantern deck will be closed to the public this summer. The balcony and watch room will be open.
Aquinnah will hold a celebration at the Aquinnah Circle on Friday at 6 p.m. It coincides with the 10th anniversary of the lighthouse’s relocation in 2015, when it was moved away from the eroding cliff.
The new LED beacon replaces a DCB-224 halogen lamp, which is now stored in Aquinnah.
“That’s so weird, it plugs in,” said Mr. Manning as the new lantern was installed.
The LED beacon projects the original flash pattern, white-white-white-red, from when the lighthouse was built in 1856 and had the Fresnel lens, which is now housed at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum. Since the halogen lamp was installed in 1989, it projected alternating white and red flashes.
Mr. Manning said the decision to switch to an LED lantern came from the Coast Guard.
“The halogen lamp that we replaced is old technology,” Mr. Manning said. “It’s expensive to maintain [and] there’s more maintenance that is required for it. There’s no parts to repair it or replace [it] if anything broke.”
The light won’t be on 24 hours each day like the halogen lamp, said Ryan Halloran, a U.S. Coast Guard officer. It’s ultraviolet sensitive and only shines when it’s dark.
Mr. Manning saw the new lights shine through the fog for the first time on Wednesday night. He said the lantern spins counter-clockwise, the opposite direction from the halogen lamp. He said he imagines they’re unable to revert it back, because it would confuse nautical charts.
The flashes from the new lamp are also unevenly spaced because the beacon has six bulbs, two of which aren’t illuminated to keep the four-flash pattern, Mr. Manning said.
Assistant lighthouse keeper Isaac Taylor was thrilled to have the original pattern back. He remembers lying underneath the lighthouse as a kid at night, with his head against the bricks.
“Occasionally, if you’re lucky enough, you get up there with your family and … the stars are still visible, but there’s enough moisture in the air to create this beautiful complicated pattern,” Mr. Taylor said.
The wagon-wheel effect, as he refers to it, occurs when the light reflects off the window glass. Mr. Taylor said even with two flashes it was spectacular. Now that there’s four flashes, the effect is more pronounced.
“I’m so glad that now it’ll be back to those same colors,” Mr. Taylor said.
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