Farol de Gonçalo Velho

Farol de Gonçalo Velho
Place:	Ponta do Castelo, Vila do Porto , Santa Maria , Azores
Location:	on a ledge by the sea
Geographical location:	36 ° 55 '46.4 "  N , 25 ° 0' 58"  W Coordinates: 36 ° 55 '46.4 "  N , 25 ° 0' 58"  W.
Fire carrier height :	14 m
Fire height :	114 m
Identifier :	Fl (3) W.13.5s
Scope knows:	25 nm (46.3 km )
Optics:	Third order Fresnel lens
Operating mode:	electric
Function:	Sea fire
Construction time:	1925-1927
Operating time:	since November 15, 1927
International ordinal number:	D-2632

The Farol de Gonçalo Velho is a lighthouse in the southeast of the Azores island of Santa Maria . It stands in the municipality of Santo Espírito on a ledge of the Ponta do Castelo . The lighthouse is registered under the international number D-2632 and the national number 680. It irradiates a sector from 181 ° to 89 ° and has a range of 25  nautical miles .

History and architecture

The general plan for lighting the Portuguese coasts of 1883, which also took the Azores into account, provided for the construction of a second-order lighthouse at Ponta do Castelo in the southeast of the island of Santa Maria. However, the implementation of the plan did not make progress at first. In 1902 it was changed to the effect that the lighthouse should only have a fourth-order appearance. The required land was not acquired until 1925. The lighthouse was finally opened on November 15, 1927 as Farol da Ponta do Castelo . In 1930 it was renamed Farol de Gonçalo Velho , in honor of the first colonizer of Santa Maria, the legate captain Gonçalo Velho Cabral .

The 14-meter-high tower is - as is common with Portuguese lighthouses of the time - connected to a one-story brick building that serves as an apartment for the lighthouse keeper and his family, and also contains storage rooms. Both are painted white. The square tower has a gallery and a red lacquered metal lantern . The third-order Fresnel optics (500 mm focal length), which are divided into two groups of three panels each, have vertical slots in the upper half of the panel, which generate flashes of light for aeronavigation. A petroleum incandescent light was initially used as the light source . An outbuilding was built as early as 1934 to make room for the family of the second lighthouse keeper, and another in 1955 to house a generator and a fuel store . In 1957 the lighthouse was electrified and equipped with a 3000 W incandescent lamp. In 1971 the clockwork used to rotate the optics was replaced by an electric motor . In 1987 the lighthouse was switched to automatic operation and the power was reduced to 1000 W. In 1991 it was connected to the power grid.

See also

• List of lighthouses in Portugal

Web links

Commons : Farol de Gonçalo Velho  - Collection of Images

• Farol de Gonçalo Velho / Farol da Maia on the Portuguese Architectural Heritage Information System website (Sistema de Informação para o Património Arquitectónico, SIPA)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} List of Lights, Radio Aids and Fog Signals. Pub. 113: The West Coasts of Europe and Africa, The Mediterranian Sea, Black Sea and Azovskoye More (Sea of ​​Azov) (PDF; 3.3 MB), National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Springfield, Virginia, 2017, p. 411
2. ↑ Faróis de Portugal on the website of the Associação Nacional de Cruzeiros, accessed on July 31, 2017 (Portuguese)
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Farol do Gonçalo Velho ( Memento from August 12, 2017 in the Internet Archive ), Faróis de Portugal (Portuguese)
4. ↑ Manuel Bettencourt: Farol Gonçalo Velho, ilha de Santa Maria , June 13, 2011, accessed on August 1, 2017 (Portuguese)
5. ↑ ^{a b} Acores: Gonçalo Velho , Lighthouses of the European Union, accessed on July 31, 2017
6. ^ Russ Rowlett: Lighthouses of Portugal: Azores ( English ) In: The Lighthouse Directory . University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill . Retrieved August 1, 2017.