Browsed by
Tag: Lightships

Mud and Lavender

Mud and Lavender

Comments 2 Comments

Last Sunday was the annual open day of the Lightship ‘Trinity’ at Tollesbury and it was also sunny. We went last year and quite enjoyed it so we thought we’d do it again.

‘Trinity’ is anchored at the edge of a channel through the salt marshes so that when the tide is out it is left sitting on the mud. It’s then a simple matter of following the path through the marshes to the ship and walking on board. The clever bit is not to walk out there a little before high tide because you could then be stuck there, with the path under water, until the tide starts to recede.

We went up into the light tower, as we did last time, where I took this photograph.

It’s a picture of one of the light assemblies with the bulb in the centre and a concave mirror behind. The upside-down person on the left is me. If you look carefully you will be able to see the channel and the bell shaped grey area is the deck at the stern of the vessel.

Having been to the highest part of the ship we went straight down to one of the lowest parts – the engine room. This picture is of Amanda down in the engine room about to start up the ladder.

One of the nicest things wasn’t even on the ship it was the patches of Sea Lavender flowering in the marshes.

In this picture you can see one of the numerous channels which run through these marshes.

Another nice little trip.

We have seen the light!

We have seen the light!

Comments 0 Comment

Today the lightship at Tollesbury was having an open day so we toddled off to have a look.

We arrived just in time for a cup of coffee and a piece of cake which was a good start. It turned out to be a very interesting tour from the bowels of the engine room to the big light way above the deck. We seemed to be going up one set of steps and down another most of the time.

Stairway

Most of these stairways were so steep it was actually easier going down backward. So down into the engine room we went – backward. It must have been a fun job down in the engine room in a stormy sea.

Stairway

These engines were not used to move the ship but to drive generators to power the light. These ships had no motive power of their own and were always towed into position and anchored.

The actual light looks, from the deck, like this:

Stairway

Climbing steps like these within the tower:

Stairway

gets us into the light housing itself with views like this:

Stairway

There are four separate lights within the housing, each with it’s own reflector and each facing a different point of the compass and thus covering 360 degrees.

Stairway

You can see that there isn’t really a lot of room in the main light housing and, being completely enclosed in glass it was a bit of a hothouse today.

Stairway

That trip was a bit unusual and very enjoyable. Now it must be time to split the main brace mustn’t it?