Rockall, lit or unlit?

[Fascadale]

The recent post about Rivals to Rockall has had me looking at the charts.

On my iPad, the UKHO charts running on Memory Map show no light, the Transas chart running on iSailor shows no light but on Navionics Rockall is shown as having a light flashing with a period of 15 seconds and a range of 13M

So, Rockall, lit or unlit?

 

[MM5AHO]

There's reference to this question here..
http://www.therockallclub.org/index.html

But it doesn't seem certain if the light is still there, or still operating. During the occasional storm apparently the top of the rock is washed by waves. 20m wave heights recorded at times on the weather buoy between here and St Kilda, yet Rockall isn't that high. Be a sturdy light that survives wave washing in a storm.

 

[Mark-1]

Thanks MM5AHO, that looks as as close to definitive as we're going to get:

http://www.therockallclub.org/The_Rockall_Club_News.html

29th May 2016 - Neil McGrigor's team of four landed by Scorpion RIB 'Rockall' from Oban, they spent the night and installed a new Carmanah M650 solar LED white light, which is programmed to flash at 15 second intervals.

4th July 2017 - Safehaven Marine completed their 'Long Way Round' circumnavigation of Ireland via Rockall, placing a plaque on the rock without landing. The team comprised skipper Frank Kowalski, Mary Power, Ciaran Monks, Ian Brownlee and Carl Randalls, and were unfortunately unable to confirm whether the navigation light is still in operation.

 

[JumbleDuck]

According to "The Rock Lighthouses of Great Britain", there have been a couple of attempts to place lights on Rockall but none of them have lasted for long. It's a wild world out there - I think it was at Dubh Artach, though it may have been Skerryvore, where they found a one hundredweight boulder, carried up there by waves, in the unfinished lantern gallery when they restarted work after the usual winter suspension.

 

[MM5AHO]

According to "The Rock Lighthouses of Great Britain", there have been a couple of attempts to place lights on Rockall but none of them have lasted for long. It's a wild world out there - I think it was at Dubh Artach, though it may have been Skerryvore, where they found a one hundredweight boulder, carried up there by waves, in the unfinished lantern gallery when they restarted work after the usual winter suspension.

That was Skerryvore during the building of it. Rock was found after the winter, up about 30m asl. I read that story, recorded by Alan Stevenson in 2 different books. Amazing power of the sea!

 

[Greenheart]

Be a sturdy light that survives wave washing in a storm.

But not sturdier than science could accomplish, in 2017?

A thick glass lens, within a steel dome, massively bolted close to the rock's highest point; no flexible mast to get blasted.

I'd think the power-source would be the harder thing to defend, recharge and maintain.

 

[Kelpie]

It's probably the attachment to the rock that is the weak link.

 

[JumbleDuck]

But not sturdier than science could accomplish, in 2017?

A thick glass lens, within a steel dome, massively bolted close to the rock's highest point; no flexible mast to get blasted.

This is the light Greenpeace installed. The whole thing was washed away. though it did survive a few years.

 

[Mark-1]

I'd think the power-source would be the harder thing to defend, recharge and maintain.

Judging by the picture above, that's the case. Even if you bonded a solar panel perfectly flush to the rock it's going to suffer damage from stone/debris thrown up by the waves and even get covered in dried salt/grot/bird poo. (Assuming birds perch there from time to time, which given the remoteness, they might not.)

As you say, in contrast the lense can be quite sturdy, but I guess if a big enough boulder hits it even the strongest lense will be smashed/dislodged.

...and all of that assumes the rock itself isn't crumbling, but it doesn't look like it is.

Makes me think an internal battery and a sequence where the light is off a lot would be the best answer. Maybe a 3 second strobe every five minutes for instance.

Not that it really needs a light.

 

[Old Thady]

Is there any record of vessels being wrecked on Rockall? You'd have to be unlucky to hit it by accident but, in centuries of marine activity, some unfortunate crew must have had fortune scowl on them.

 

[Kelpie]

Re birds: I knew someone who visited Rockall a few years ago, and his description was "small, brown, and covered in sh*t". So yes, plenty of birds- it's the only perch for hundreds of miles.

I don't know of any boats wrecked on Rockall itself, but there was one lost on a nearby shoal.

 

[Kelpie]

Check out the Norge and the Helen, wrecked on Hasslewood rock close to Rockall- grim reading!

 

[JumbleDuck]

Is there any record of vessels being wrecked on Rockall? You'd have to be unlucky to hit it by accident but, in centuries of marine activity, some unfortunate crew must have had fortune scowl on them.

I believe that one of the Stevensons gave the NLB a quote for putting a lighthouse on Rockall, but the amount was, as you'd expect, staggeringly enormous and the project went no further.

 

[Greenheart]

Yup, that was the sort of thing I imagined would survive. If the rock itself is too crumbly to grip properly-specified fixings, plainly the thing can't be done.

I guess it's a matter of heavier-gauge bolts, drilled further into the rock - and no square edges jutting out which are so vulnerable to surging green water.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Yup, that was the sort of thing I imagined would survive. If the rock itself is too crumbly to grip properly-specified fixings, plainly the thing can't be done.

I guess it's a matter of heavier-gauge bolts, drilled further into the rock - and no square edges jutting out which are so vulnerable to surging green water.

As far as I can tell, the vaguely reddish truncated cone thing is a heavy bronze mount, which is fitted to a flat spot created explosively in 1971. It seems to have had a variety of lamps attached to it. including a sticky up one

and a squat one

as well as the domed one installed by Greenpeace. More recent pictures don't show any sign of a light:

The best solution might be a beacon powered by nuclear thermoelectric generator, which could be made very solid indeed. The USSR had around 1000 navigation beacons in the north running on Strontium-90 decay, though all have now run down. There have been issues with ill-advised and in some cases short-lived locals stealing the remains for scrap (http://bellona.org/news/nuclear-iss...5-04-radioisotope-thermoelectric-generators-2), but that shouldn't be too much of an issue on Rockall.

 

[Greenheart]

Those are nice thoughts, JD.

The fact that the solar panel is visible in that latter shot, while the light itself has gone, seems surprising, but somewhat encouraging.

If positioning the power source isn't prohibitive, surely that ruddy great lump of bronze offers a solid-enough base to drill 25mm bolts into, to hold a streamlined encapsulated light unit? Isn't it probable that the fixings for the light which has gone, were simply under-specified for the job?

Bigger, longer bolts, and a high-specification lamp-housing. I doubt the location represents a harsher environment than is experienced by things attached to the outside of submarines and aircraft.

EDIT...unless of course, some little humourist is going up there with a hacksaw or cordless grinder, and returning Rockall to the nocturnal gloom that Nature intended.

 

[Mark-1]

EDIT...unless of course, some little humourist is going up there with a hacksaw or cordless grinder, and returning Rockall to the nocturnal gloom that Nature intended.

Who knows. The ownership is contested. I doubt that either government want Geenpeace bolting lights to it. It's entirely possible someone got sent up there with an angle grinder. It would certainly explain why the vulnerable solar panel is still there while the sturdy light fitting is gone. (If the solar panel is still there - I can't make it out.)

 

[JumbleDuck]

The fact that the solar panel is visible in that latter shot, while the light itself has gone, seems surprising, but somewhat encouraging.

That's not the solar panel - I think it's a frame where a solar panel used to be before it was Rockalled. Here's a snippet from the high-res picture at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/LE_Roisin_at_Rockall.jpg

If positioning the power source isn't prohibitive, surely that ruddy great lump of bronze offers a solid-enough base to drill 25mm bolts into, to hold a streamlined encapsulated light unit? Isn't it probable that the fixings for the light which has gone, were simply under-specified for the job?

Bigger, longer bolts, and a high-specification lamp-housing. I doubt the location represents a harsher environment than is experienced by things attached to the outside of submarines and aircraft.

As per photographs, several attempts have been made and none have lasted, so it must be quite a problem. Submarines and planes don't have to put up with pounding by waves and seabed rocks.

EDIT...unless of course, some little humourist is going up there with a hacksaw or cordless grinder, and returning Rockall to the nocturnal gloom that Nature intended.

Bloody Cornish, get everywhere.

 

[Greenheart]

I'm now a conspiracy theorist. It wasn't the waves deliberately aiming rocks at precise spots...it was some agent endeavouring to prevent establishment of rights or national presumption.

 

[Mark-1]

I'm now a conspiracy theorist. It wasn't the waves deliberately aiming rocks at precise spots...it was some agent endeavouring to prevent establishment of rights or national presumption.

Suspect you're joking but I actually agree. Sea and rock are immensely powerful but not very tidy. If the Greenpeace light and solar panel is totally gone without trace (we don't know it is, but it's strongly implied) I'm betting a passing warship removed it. It's a political slogan/statement as well as a light which might be reason enough for officialdom to remove it.

OTOH, if there's sheared bolts left behind that look like a few boulders have twatted it then I'd bet on the sea is the culprit.

That leaves all the previous lights, but who knows how secure they really were. The largeframe secured by 8 bolts is still there looking battered. It's probably on the lee side, but even so, it's still there.

Attaching something to granite on Rockall and it staying put is clearly possible. (The brass mount on top is proof of that.) How long it stays lit/visible or not is a different question. As is whether it's worth it.