A lighthouse foghorn as loud as a chainsaw has been keeping residents in this seaside part of the UK awake after it developed a glitch making it sound every 13 seconds.
CornwallLive reports residents near Land’s End have been advised to invest in earplugs after the Longships Lighthouse’s fog horn started sounded every few seconds about a week ago.
Now after six days, locals have been warned it could be a while longer before the lighthouse alert system is sorted out.
Nautical foghorns are designed to warn shipping of dangerous hazards, such as rocks and raised sandbanks, and have to be loud enough to be heard more than two miles away. The noise they produce can reach between 110 and 142 decibels, the same level as a chainsaw or clap of thunder.
In a post on its Facebook page on Tuesday, the National Coastwatch Institution at Gwennap Head said: “Anyone living in the area may have noticed that, for the past six days, the Longships lighthouse has been sounding its foghorn every 13 seconds…. all day and all night.”
They added: “Our watchkeeper has reported this ‘interesting’ occurrence to HM Coastguard in Falmouth and they, in turn, have reported it to Trinity House.
“It has been fed back to us that Trinity House are aware of the problem; apparently, there is a fault in the Fog Sensing mechanism and they are awaiting delivery of a part to fix it.
“Of course, once the part has arrived, the maintenance crew will still have to wait for calm enough weather conditions to allow them to get out to the lighthouse and install it. In the meantime, a set of ear plugs might be a good investment.”
Below the NCI post on Facebook, residents and engineers working on the lighthouse have commented on the recent fog horn issues.
One person said: “Thanks for confirming that I wasn’t hearing things over the weekend.”
Another wondered why there is not an off switch for the faulty fog horn which can be activated remotely. He said: “You would have thought that with all the amazing technology, someone would have thought of installing a remote ‘off’ switch.”
Someone else noted that the seeming design flaw was set up on purpose so when a fault occurs no matter how small it is, the Hazard Warning System sounds for the benefit and safety of all mariners at sea.
He added: “Having an ‘off’ switch would defeat the reason why it’s there, as the detector head would not know if there was fog or not, that’s why it stays on.”
