Position light

Regulations for light guidance to signal warnings, rankings and behavior on Danish warships of the 18th century

Historic petroleum ship lantern from inland shipping

A position light or a ship's lantern is a light on board a ship which, due to its design, is suitable for the prescribed light guidance . This ship's lantern is an officially tested and certified light equipped with a Fresnel lens, which must be shown as a position light or as a signal light on board in accordance with legal regulations for light guidance.

construction

The housing and the bracket for the lantern on board should provide adequate protection against hammering and other weather conditions, especially during sea operations. Provided with an electric or gas-operated lamp and a Fresnel lens , a light of the required intensity is generated with a fixed vertical and horizontal distribution. The Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency is responsible for testing and approving the ship's lanterns. The work lights on deck and any other external lighting on a ship must not impair the visibility of the position and signal lights.

history

The color distinction developed late, sometime in the 19th century. Before the lights were white. They were also only used for signaling or lighting. When and in what form developments for different uses took place here is unknown. A first written mention of the signaling at night is known for 1474. In the Ordonnanz- or signal books for fleets or Konvoien such signals are all over the European modern era early to find. In pictures the lanterns can first be detected on galleys in the Mediterranean. It was not until 1600 that they were also visible on the stern of sailing ships in Northern Europe. The La Couronne (1636) shows an example of a particularly large rear lantern .

The first navigation and collision avoidance rules, and thus also the obligation to equip ships in Great Britain with proper lanterns, were published by Trinity House in 1840 and recognized by the Admiralty Court . For German ships, the imperial ordinance of May 9, 1897 governed the design, installation and use of ship lights.

Pictures (various examples)

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  Historic stern light

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literature

• K. Schwitalla, U. Scharnow: Lexicon of seafaring . various years, transpress VEB Verlag für Verkehrwesen Berlin, ISBN 3-344-00190-6 .
• REJ Weber: De seinboeken voor Nederlandse oorlogsvloten en konvooien tot 1690 (Werken uitgegeven door de Commissie voor Zeegeschiedenis, 15). Amsterdam 1982.
• Konrad Reich, Martin Pagel: Heavenly broom over white dogs - sailor's language in words and pictures . transpress VEB publishing house for transport. Berlin 1981.

Web links

Commons : Ship's Lanterns  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• SeeSchStrO - § 9 Use of navigation lights and sound signal systems in the electronic waterway information service (ELWIS)
• Stern lantern from the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam . A particularly beautiful example of the structure and decoration of a 17th century copy of unknown origin.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Colombo: International Law of the Sea . Munich / Berlin 1963, p. 277
2. ↑ Ordinance on the Prevention of Collisions between Ships at Sea. 9 May 1897 ( Wikisource )