Dog Island Lighthouse

Dog Island Lighthouse
Place:	bluff
Location:	Dog Island , Southland , South Island , New Zealand
Geographical location:	46 ° 39 '6.7 "  S , 168 ° 24' 37.9"  O Coordinates: 46 ° 39 '6.7 "  S , 168 ° 24' 37.9"  O
Height of tower base:	46  m
Fire carrier height :	36 m
Identifier :	FL W 10s
Scope knows:	19 nm (35.2 km )
Operating mode:	1865 oil lamp 1954 electrification 1989 automated
Function:	lighthouse
Construction time:	1864-1865
Operating time:	since 1865
International ordinal number:	K4394

Dog Island Lighthouse is a lighthouse in the Southland region on the south coast of New Zealand's South Island . It is located on Foveauxstrasse , about 3 km southeast of Bluff . It is operated by Maritime New Zealand .

The tower was the second lighthouse designed by James Melville Balfour , then a marine engineer for the province of Otago . The technical equipment of the tower was shipped together with the beacon for the Taiaroa Head Lighthouse on the City of Dunedin from Glasgow, Scotland, to Port Chalmers . This trip lasted from June 5 to September 3, 1963.

The construction of the tower was put out to tender in February 1864 and commissioned on April 8th. The then 33.5 m high black and white tower was built from broken stone. This makes it an exception to the wooden, later cast iron towers customary in New Zealand. The construction of the tallest lighthouse in New Zealand to date cost more than £ 10,000 . Commissioning took place on August 1, 1865. The initially three lighthouse keepers were supplied with fuel and supplies every three months by a government supply ship. It was only with the construction of a strip on the island in the 1960s that the interval was reduced to 2 weeks. Because the tower was built on soft ground, it began to tilt in 1871. After several repair attempts, it was surrounded by a reinforced concrete shell in 1918, increasing it to its current height of 37 m.

The tower received the country's first rotating beacon, which consisted of 16 oil lamps , each with its own lens. In 1925, however, the tower was converted to the usual design with a lens rotating around a single lamp. In 1954 the tower was electrified and powered by a diesel generator. The tower was automated in 1989 and, like all lighthouses in New Zealand, has since been remotely controlled from a central control room at Maritime New Zealand's headquarters in Wellington . In September 1999 the tower received a modern rotating beacon with a 35 watt halogen lamp, which is powered by battery-backed solar cells. The 1925 beacon is on loan from Maritime New Zealand to the Wellington Museum .

On November 22, 1984, the tower was registered as a Historic Place Category 1 by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust under number 395.

Web links

• Dog Island . Maritime New Zealand,accessed October 18, 2018. 

Individual evidence

1. ^ Dog Island Lighthouse . Heritage New Zealand , November 22, 1984, accessed February 9, 2016 .