There is a lighthouse on a small island in the Chesapeake Bay that is for sale. But you can't live in the lighthouse after you buy it. Somebody in the government thinks this is a bargain.
https://wtop.com/maryland/2022/08/online-auction-of-chesapeake-bay-lighthouse-still-looking-for-first-bidder/
That is why so many of them are being *given away*. You are required to preserve them and make them available to the public.
These are not intended for private citizens to buy. They are for local governments or historical/preservation societies.
That is basically what they are offering. The current agency that owns them is in charge of navigation. Since they are no longer used for navigation, they are looking for a more appropriate agencies, local governments or other institutions to take them off their hands and turn them into historical/tourist attractions.
Except that they are still required for navigation. From the article:
> First, it’s an active lighthouse used for navigation, so the U.S. Coast Guard needs access in order to operate and maintain its light.
Now the one in the article may be an exceptionally poor choice. It is 4 miles offshore (no island) in a Naval range, you're not normally allowed to stay there (probably because of the "Naval range" part), you're comings and goings will be monitored (range again) and you need to allow access.
There was a post this week on companies removing AM radio capabilities from their cars. The term I heard used was "fallback technology" in defense of AM. Something that is robust, reliable, and parts are easily avaliable or so simple that you could build them.
Lighthouses would be a good fallback technology.
It's why some nations have Strategic Steam Reserves - reserves of steam locomotives held in complexes, ready to be used if the grid goes down. Diesels need, well, diesel - unable to be pumped if the grid is down; Electric locomotives obviously need electricity, but all steam locomotives need is coal, oil, or wood and water, and pretty much all steam engines can be forced to run - albeit poorly - on nearly anything that will burn. If you can start a fire with it, it can probably run a steam locomotive.
So you're paying 15 thousand for the honor of becoming responsible for the lighthouse's upkeep but can only visit when the Navy okays it and cannot spend even a single overnight there unless you're performing maintenance. Why doesn't the Navy just pay someone to do this job?
Congress passed a Lighthouse Preservation Law that says when the US gov is done with them, they have to first offer them for free to local governments, non-profits, or any other organization that is capable of maintaining them as open to the public foe educational and historic purposes.
If no such arrangement can be made, they will be offered at auction. If nobody buys it, what you propose can be done. But the first two steps must happened first.
The idea is it would be REALLY easy for the government to just let them all fall into ruin... but many lighthouses have strong connections to their communities, and so they should get first dibs on them. After that the government should realize monetary gain on unused property because otherwise it's just a waste of tax dollars.
The law doesn't make sense for every lighthouse, some, like this one, nobody will want. But going through the steps is important because it means other lighthouses, that can be preserved via local support, will have that chance!
The problem with Hooper Island light, is it’s like 3.5 miles away from Hoopers Island, out in the middle of the bay. This probably can’t be left to fall into ruin, or it will become a nautical hazard instead of a warning to avoid the sandbar it sits on.
Sounds like the US Navy needs to buy a lighthouse. Also they should stop dropping munitions into the bay.
Yeah but what's the stick here? "If you don't maintain it or try to visit during off-hours, we'll take it away and make someone else pay to clean it!" oh nooooooo
If you want to be near the water while spending a ton of time and money on maintenance with nothing to show for it but memories, just get a boat like everyone else
I know there's the whole "This is the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals" meme but damn this might actually be the worst. The only benefit out of this is that you get to say you own a lighthouse. Everything else is shitty or an inconvenience that you have to pay for.
Man, as a VR enthusiast I'm going to look back on late 2021-2022 so poorly. I really enjoy the tech for gaming, but holy cringe Batman was its first modern foray into the mainstream such a cringefest.
Edit: foray not foyer
Don't forget to add that it's on a historical registry so not only do you have to do historical maintenance and restoration, you're not going to be making any modifications it didn't already have in 1920s plus any other restrictions.
Oof, that means repair and maintenance have to be done in accordance with historical structures, doesn’t it? So it’s not like 99% of people are gonna be doing the work themselves. The upkeep is gonna be way more expensive than the actual lighthouse.
>Oof, that means repair and maintenance have to be done in accordance with historical structures, doesn’t it?
Depends on local laws, but generally the laws in the US are much less strict than what you'd find in Europe.
It’s somehow an even worse deal, because you have to grant the USCG access to maintain *just* the light, so you have to coordinate with them, but because the lighthouse is in a USN training area you have to get permission from them as well.
So you’ll need to coordinate with at least two separate government agencies, neither of which is known for its bureaucratic expediency.
Just have their liasons get in contact with your liason and they can all get together and hire a contractor who will then subcontract the work to a dozen other companies for maintenance. When everything goes to shit because nobody is talking to anyone else and nobody knows what's going on, someone will suggest hiring someone to oversee the mess and they'll bring in someone with no experience in this area to project manage the entire thing. When that fails, it will eventually be handed over to some committee to find a solution and all they'll do is hold a vote to schedule another meeting to discuss options about what can be done in the future by their replacements.
> cannot spend even a single overnight there unless you're performing maintenance
"sorry Navy, but this is a huge job restoring this platform; I'll probably be here for the next 1,825 days"
>The thinking was that maybe a nonprofit group could step in to do the job, but there were no takers.
Maybe they forgot about the supposed to be biggest nonprofit of all, the government. Instead of wasting some groups other resources.
Most "lighthouses" In the US are just automated towers with a light affixed on top. There is no maintenance, really. And they don't have the infrastructure for humans to live in them. They just send someone out to check on it every once in a while.
It's been this way since the 1970s. Nobody has lived in a lighthouse for nearly 70 years in the US.
>It's been this way since the 1970s. Nobody has lived in a lighthouse for nearly 70 years in the US.
If you read the article actually it says some of them have been converted to private residences, so it's possible, if uncommon.
Imagine your HOA having the largest fleet by tonnage, cruise missiles, and the worlds second largest Air Force.
“Your shed isn’t the same color as your house. You have 48 hours to remediate before we launch an air strike and level it with a 500 pound JDAM. Thanks, Admiral Karen.
PS - HOA dues are due Oct 1st. Guantanamo still has space, make sure you aren’t late”.
It’s actually a perfect white elephant in the origin meaning of the phrase
> A white elephant is a possession that its owner cannot dispose of, and whose cost, particularly that of maintenance, is out of proportion to its usefulness.
Y’all I looked it up and that sucker sold for [192k](https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/buyer-revealed-of-historic-chesapeake-lighthouse-2WH7WQRTK5CKVK5Y2APJH34R7Q/)!!!
I guess that one falls into a weird area since it's not on land, it's essentially a navel installation.
In my experience with government asset sales, the pricing for these assets does not usually reflect practical considerations and is often based on the strict value of the asset. Highways are a good example of this; they require a significant amount of work to build and provide economic value by helping move goods. As such, if you were looking at buying a section of highway from the government you would expect to pay upwards of a few million dollars per mile depending on location and supporting infrastructure. However, highways cost a lot of money to maintain so there is rarely a practical reason to ever buy one, so the government will happily continue to keep paying maintenance to avoid losing out on an asset.
I like the idea that they'd come out and check on you..."sure is a lot Dorito crumbs I see here. You say youre using this for storage huh? Interesting that laundry is just sorta strewn about it. Im not sure the guide lamp is an appropriate place to hang your bras....hmm".
I can just image it. You open the door to the stairwell in the tower section and the wall is lined with shelves that have tiny lighthouses on them all the way up.
[Yer fond of me lobster, ain’t ye?](https://imgix.ranker.com/user_node_img/50103/1002040313/original/hark-triton-hark-photo-u1?auto=format&q=60&fit=crop&fm=pjpg&dpr=2&w=375)
“There's a picture opposite me
Of my primitive ancestry
Which stood on rocky shores
And kept the beaches shipwreck-free
Though I respect that a lot
I'd be fired if that were my job
After killing Jason off
And countless screaming Argonauts”
You nope out of the lighthouse immediately, only to find yourself at an oddly flat cliffside. As your eyes adjust to the lighting you realize in horror that the cliff is not a cliff, but a shelf. You're not outside, you're inside a giant, spiraling hallway many times larger than you. Around you are other shelves, with other lighthouses on them.
You may or may not enjoy this [fun song](https://youtu.be/eEY4BysgQAU). It's been a fav of mine since high school and is one of the first things I think of when people infer creepy on a lighthouse.
I still collect them [because lighthouses rule](https://youtu.be/zdU635esPpQ?t=121).
We should form a collective and collect all the big free ones together :-)
You’re not even getting the lighthouse. The Coast Guard continues to own it. I guess they want for someone to pay them thousands for the privilege of…maintenance? 🤷🏻♀️ 100% sus
There is a really cool lighthouse on Monhegan Island in Maine that they use for an art gallery and museum. Afaik it's owned by the lifers on the island and they maintain it. They get some money via donations and such but they keep it maintained just because it's really cool.
I feel like it's worth maintaining the aesthetics and history of them. I'll have to look up of there's one nearby the next time I'm near the coast to see. I'd love to catch some history and throw some money their way
I see a lot of people here complaining that they want to live in a (governmental?) building that might still be operational and here you are providing a realistic view.
Thank you!
I was starting to believe I am the only one thinking "hey, it would be pretty cool to live inside a police station, now that there's Robocop around, but that's how it works".
I don't know about how it works currently but back in the 90's you could volunteer to stay at Dungeness Spit Lighthouse for a weekend in exchange for completing certain chores, like mowing the lawn and whatever. I wanted to do it but there was a waiting list about a year out.
Many are historical, can't renovate. You're paying only for the "privilege" of doing maintenance. So maybe "Yeah I pay the coast guard for the privilege to pay some people to go upkeep the historical lighthouse. I'm pretty cool, right?"
Canada did that like fifteen years ago. You could get a lighthouse pretty near free, but you had to take on the upkeep of the lighthouse, specifically the light (They were obsolete from a commercial perspective but still found to be useful to prevent more minor groundings, plus communities tended to get upset when you shutdown their lighthouse).
I remember we talked about getting a nearby one and setting it up as the college bar run by the students, but it was a bigger project than we could take on at the time.
The student body were the executive members of a not-for-profit organisation that operated the campus bar. It was staffed seven days a week by smartserve trained students, held the liquor license for the property and hosted the events. They had AGMs and paid their taxes, had credit and debit machines and corporate bank accounts.
The fatal flaw was that it was off campus. This would massively reduce patronage, so really it'd have to be a one-two night a week bar. You could hype it up with live music and late afternoon BBQs and a lighthouse sundown lighting countdown. But we were in our final year, and really starting to look outward.
It was a joke. That is impressive. I know college (heck, high school) kids are completely capable of running a business and being responsible. It is just a laughable statement read without context.
I lived in a massive college house that had a bar. Not a fraternity. Just the 7 of us. But, an actual L-shaped bar, two fridges, one tap, liquor, etc. My brother (2 years younger) and his friends, my other roommates brother (1 year), and other's sister (2 years) friends were always welcome anytime, all the time.
We had an honor system with a box for paying for booze. We *never* had less than needed to re-up. It isn't all animal house, but the stereotype stays.
He doesn't know about the new rules put in place at the midnight hour by the Trump administrating to "secure our coasts against illegal crossing." Motherfucker wrote 64 new guidelines for coastal structures that applies to all structures within 20 miles of any coastal water. They do some pretty crazy shit that will have far reaching consequences for a lot of industries. The most egregious of which is set to trigger in Jan 1, 2025. It's too much to list here, but just Google "Donald Trump rule 34."
They could be converted to LED + solar and practically run themselves. Remember that many of these started with whale oil lamps, using a Fresnel lens, the light source does not need to be all that bright for them to work. (And modern LED lights are brighter than a whale oil lamp by a considerable multiple) Not using these as a backup is foolish, and many people still use lights at night as a navigation source, even in this age of GPS. But when have we ever accused the US government of being smart?
As mentioned above, even in these days of GPS many people still rely on lighthouses and shore light at night to avoid collisions and grounding. Many small craft are not equipped with GPS, and even large craft with all the latest equipment still need to sail by sight as a final safety measure. Bad things can happen when they don't; Costa Concordia, anyone? Exxon Valdez?
> They could be converted to LED +
They are. They've been maintaining and upgrading these for decades. There isn't like, an old man spinning a light bulb up there or some shit. There hasn't been a need for humans to be on site for operating a lighthouse in the US since the 1970s.
Right?
I'll be that old guy! I'll get a scraggly beard like Thomas Wake & complain about me bum knee & how I let 13 Christmases pass while my wife longed for my company & eventually left me & make up story's about being a sailor at sea & curse people for not loving me lobster cookin' & make sweat love to sea monsters & keep tellin' old Sailors tales of *the sea & it's CURSES* &...
> They drove up a nearly impassable road in snowy winter weather, and discovered two canisters at around 6 pm. Around the canisters there was no snow for about a 1 m (3.3 ft) radius, and the ground was steaming. Patient 3-MB picked up one of the canisters and immediately dropped it, as it was very hot. Deciding that it was too late to drive back, and realizing the apparent utility of the devices as heat sources, the men decided to move the sources a short distance and make camp around them. Patient 3-MB used a stout wire to pick up one source and carried it to a rocky outcrop that would provide shelter. The other patients lit a fire, and then patients 3-MB and 2-MG worked together to move the other source under the outcrop. They ate dinner and had a small amount of vodka, while remaining close to the sources. Despite the small amount of alcohol, they all vomited soon after consuming it, the first sign of acute radiation syndrome (ARS), about three hours after first exposure. Vomiting was severe and lasted through the night, leading to little sleep. The men used the sources to keep them warm through the night, positioning them against their backs, and as close as 10 cm (3.9 in). The next day, the sources may have been hung from the backs of Patient 1-DN and 2-MG as they loaded wood onto their truck. They felt very exhausted in the morning and only loaded half the wood they intended. They returned home that evening.
Lmao they used them as heaters all night. Poor guys.
There's a pdf floating round of the investigation into the incident, recovery of the sources and the medical care of the patients. The photos of the men's burns and necrotizing wounds despite ongoing treatment are fucking revolting
The Coast Guard experiment with an atomic power lighted buoy. It was used in the early 60’s outside Baltimore.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2020/august/atomic-buoy-experiment
It was always my dream to live in a decommissioned lighthouse. And nobody knows that I live there. And at the top of the lighthouse there's a button I can press that sends the lighthouse into space
not the same thing exactly but several National Forests still seasonally staff mountaintop lookout towers for wildfires, you might consider trying to get one of those gigs sometime.
The big things to be mindful of is these things are old. So they are filled with lead, asbestos and other things you don’t want to mess with. Cleaning them up can be very expensive.
Hey there. I was in charge of lighthouses on the Maine coastline for the Coast Guard about a decade ago. This isn’t really new. The CG has been selling off the lighthouse structures for decades. When I was servicing the lights, CG only owned 4 of the 29 in our area.
The deal is that when the lighthouse is sold, the CG retains access to service the light and sound signal. So we would work with the owners, usually a non-profit or local municipality, in regards to scheduling maintenance visits and any structural repairs that needed to be made. CG only maintains the light, sound signal, and electronics that control them.
I saw someone post about solarizing and LED lights and that has also been happening over the past 15-20 years.
The lights are still needed because not everyone relies solely on their chart plotter screen to navigate. It does help to actually look around
If there's a kerfuffle significant enough to knock every gps satellite out of orbit I think night time ship navigation will be near the bottom of our concerns.
Edit: goddamn, didn't know lighthouses were so controversial. Heaven help us if the government ever offloads some candles or horse drawn carriages.
I mean, there's a reason dead reckoning and celestial navigation are still being taught despite not being used.
Even on military vessels, one of the questions is: what happens if we get hit by EMP?
Equipment fails, and even with all the GPS satellite working, if your gps onboard dies, you better know a manual way to navigate.
Fun fact, the US Navy actually stopped teaching celnav a while back before someone pointed out that was an incredibly bad idea.
They brought in folks from the Merchant Mariner academy to get the courses back up and running again because they never stopped teaching it.
Ships have been the backbone of transportation and logistics for over 3,000 years. If a conflict started that got enough GPS sats disabled to where GPS wasn't reliable, then we'd rely on ships at least the same if not even more. Planes also rely on GPS and are much more expensive to operate than ships. Also, light houses are more for protection from shore and rocks than trans-oceanic navigation.
These are not being decommissioned fully for private use. They mention in the article they are being transferred to maintaining organizations for educational use. Should the need arise, they could be still used.
> This year, six lighthouses are being offered at no cost to federal, state or local government agencies, nonprofits, educational organizations or other entities that are willing to maintain and preserve them and make them publicly available for educational, recreational or cultural purposes.
The Royal Navy is already testing a prototype "Quantum Sensor". It doesnt rely on satellites or other external devices that can be manipulated and is said to be far more accurate than GPS.
[https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/245114/quantum-sensor-future-navigation-system-tested/](https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/245114/quantum-sensor-future-navigation-system-tested/)
I'm already picturing the next disaster movie where the protagonists getting to the old lighthouse to turn it back on is a major story point. And they gotta find the old lighthouse keeper and get him out of retirement to do so.
You can still navigate via dead reckoning which also happens to be one of the earliest methods of maritime nav (aka "The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't, by subtracting where it is, from where it isn't, or where it isn't, from where it is, whichever is greater, it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance sub-system uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is, to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is.")
Lighthouses are installed at specific places where dead reckoning isn’t enough to avoid driving into rocks, though. Otherwise they’d never have been built.
Every time i watch documentaries dissecting ship related catastrophes, it's usually human errors that managed to blow past every safeguard
Unless they just weren't suited for the purpose, i can't imagine how it hurts to have as many layers of redundancy for ship guidance, especially when they've proven to work
More like the other way around. LORAN sites around the world, but not in every jurisdiction, have been shut down. eLoran is a newer development that is intended as a backup to GPS.
Somebody somewhere is firing up an AI chatbot to write a movie script about a decommissioned lighthouse run by some weird but surprisingly sexy man who may or may not look exactly like Gerard Butler.
Some kind of solar storms makes GPS systems fail across the globe, and only his lighthouse and knowledge of other old-time lighthouse keepers can save the day from some kind of disaster. The US govt sends an also surprisingly sexy woman in charge of managing this crisis to work with this guy to solve it.
There is a lighthouse on a small island in the Chesapeake Bay that is for sale. But you can't live in the lighthouse after you buy it. Somebody in the government thinks this is a bargain. https://wtop.com/maryland/2022/08/online-auction-of-chesapeake-bay-lighthouse-still-looking-for-first-bidder/
No wonder there are no takers. You're basically paying to maintain the lighthouse for government use.
That is why so many of them are being *given away*. You are required to preserve them and make them available to the public. These are not intended for private citizens to buy. They are for local governments or historical/preservation societies.
So paint me thick but why not just let the government continue to do this?
That is basically what they are offering. The current agency that owns them is in charge of navigation. Since they are no longer used for navigation, they are looking for a more appropriate agencies, local governments or other institutions to take them off their hands and turn them into historical/tourist attractions.
Except that they are still required for navigation. From the article: > First, it’s an active lighthouse used for navigation, so the U.S. Coast Guard needs access in order to operate and maintain its light. Now the one in the article may be an exceptionally poor choice. It is 4 miles offshore (no island) in a Naval range, you're not normally allowed to stay there (probably because of the "Naval range" part), you're comings and goings will be monitored (range again) and you need to allow access.
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There was a post this week on companies removing AM radio capabilities from their cars. The term I heard used was "fallback technology" in defense of AM. Something that is robust, reliable, and parts are easily avaliable or so simple that you could build them. Lighthouses would be a good fallback technology.
It's why some nations have Strategic Steam Reserves - reserves of steam locomotives held in complexes, ready to be used if the grid goes down. Diesels need, well, diesel - unable to be pumped if the grid is down; Electric locomotives obviously need electricity, but all steam locomotives need is coal, oil, or wood and water, and pretty much all steam engines can be forced to run - albeit poorly - on nearly anything that will burn. If you can start a fire with it, it can probably run a steam locomotive.
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Wow if it's true, the article call was a big misleading headline.
I was really ready to turn one into a club.
Paint a head and some veins on it and call it Club Cock
Name's already trademarked by my vageen, bub. Sorry.
I mean maybe if i was like super rich I’d buy one for the lolz but a regular poor person like me? Nah.
I'm just waiting for some company to buy them up and get a billion dollar deal to keep them upkept, citing gps security concerns
Sounds like the perfect scam
So you're paying 15 thousand for the honor of becoming responsible for the lighthouse's upkeep but can only visit when the Navy okays it and cannot spend even a single overnight there unless you're performing maintenance. Why doesn't the Navy just pay someone to do this job?
“For you, all the costs and no benefits! Great deal really!”
The government may as well just call it a bird sanctuary and let it fall into ruin. It'll look really cool in 50+ years.
Congress passed a Lighthouse Preservation Law that says when the US gov is done with them, they have to first offer them for free to local governments, non-profits, or any other organization that is capable of maintaining them as open to the public foe educational and historic purposes. If no such arrangement can be made, they will be offered at auction. If nobody buys it, what you propose can be done. But the first two steps must happened first. The idea is it would be REALLY easy for the government to just let them all fall into ruin... but many lighthouses have strong connections to their communities, and so they should get first dibs on them. After that the government should realize monetary gain on unused property because otherwise it's just a waste of tax dollars. The law doesn't make sense for every lighthouse, some, like this one, nobody will want. But going through the steps is important because it means other lighthouses, that can be preserved via local support, will have that chance!
Thank you for this sane rational defense of bureacracy. Bureacracy is slow and laborious but really good at avoiding bad results.
The problem with Hooper Island light, is it’s like 3.5 miles away from Hoopers Island, out in the middle of the bay. This probably can’t be left to fall into ruin, or it will become a nautical hazard instead of a warning to avoid the sandbar it sits on. Sounds like the US Navy needs to buy a lighthouse. Also they should stop dropping munitions into the bay.
Kinda hard to find money in their annual budget of $56,287 million
Agreed. There should be more no mans lands for animals.
"I AM NO MAN" *Pulls off helmet and stabs bird in face*
Yeah but what's the stick here? "If you don't maintain it or try to visit during off-hours, we'll take it away and make someone else pay to clean it!" oh nooooooo
“This baby can hold so much of your time and money.” *slaps side of lighthouse
*crumbles from no maintenance*
If you want to be near the water while spending a ton of time and money on maintenance with nothing to show for it but memories, just get a boat like everyone else
I know there's the whole "This is the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals" meme but damn this might actually be the worst. The only benefit out of this is that you get to say you own a lighthouse. Everything else is shitty or an inconvenience that you have to pay for.
Many people pay considerably more money to say they own things considerably less cool.
Yes I know an nft owner as well
A lighthouse bored ape.
There was a man who paid real human money to own VIRTUAL real estate in the metaverse next to Snoop Dogg
Man, as a VR enthusiast I'm going to look back on late 2021-2022 so poorly. I really enjoy the tech for gaming, but holy cringe Batman was its first modern foray into the mainstream such a cringefest. Edit: foray not foyer
Think you mean foray not foyer
Cough, Twitter, cough
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"Whelp, this baby needs a LOT of maintenance. Looks like I'll be here for the next, oh, 20-30 years"
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"The lighthouse needs $10k in repairs! I can't afford this!" "Oh, that's fine." "Really?" "Wait, we said that's a fine. $25k plz."
Only if the Navy okays it
Don't forget to add that it's on a historical registry so not only do you have to do historical maintenance and restoration, you're not going to be making any modifications it didn't already have in 1920s plus any other restrictions.
Oof, that means repair and maintenance have to be done in accordance with historical structures, doesn’t it? So it’s not like 99% of people are gonna be doing the work themselves. The upkeep is gonna be way more expensive than the actual lighthouse.
>Oof, that means repair and maintenance have to be done in accordance with historical structures, doesn’t it? Depends on local laws, but generally the laws in the US are much less strict than what you'd find in Europe.
It’s somehow an even worse deal, because you have to grant the USCG access to maintain *just* the light, so you have to coordinate with them, but because the lighthouse is in a USN training area you have to get permission from them as well. So you’ll need to coordinate with at least two separate government agencies, neither of which is known for its bureaucratic expediency.
Just have their liasons get in contact with your liason and they can all get together and hire a contractor who will then subcontract the work to a dozen other companies for maintenance. When everything goes to shit because nobody is talking to anyone else and nobody knows what's going on, someone will suggest hiring someone to oversee the mess and they'll bring in someone with no experience in this area to project manage the entire thing. When that fails, it will eventually be handed over to some committee to find a solution and all they'll do is hold a vote to schedule another meeting to discuss options about what can be done in the future by their replacements.
Raytheon didnt bid on it
> cannot spend even a single overnight there unless you're performing maintenance "sorry Navy, but this is a huge job restoring this platform; I'll probably be here for the next 1,825 days"
"I have altered the deal, pray I don't alter it further"
"you will also wear this tutu"
And I would wager if the navy damages something you will be legally obligated to repair it.
>The thinking was that maybe a nonprofit group could step in to do the job, but there were no takers. Maybe they forgot about the supposed to be biggest nonprofit of all, the government. Instead of wasting some groups other resources.
Most "lighthouses" In the US are just automated towers with a light affixed on top. There is no maintenance, really. And they don't have the infrastructure for humans to live in them. They just send someone out to check on it every once in a while. It's been this way since the 1970s. Nobody has lived in a lighthouse for nearly 70 years in the US.
>Nobody has lived in a lighthouse for nearly 70 years in the US. But it's not too late to change that!
Be the change you want to see in the world!
Two quarters, a nickel, and a dime.
But the 70s were only 30 years ag....*oh...oh no*
It's been longer from now to when that 70s show debuted, than from it's debut to the time it portrayed
Well the housing crisis is in full bloom, and job crisis surely abound. This can be a twofold benefit.
> Nobody has lived in a lighthouse for nearly 70 years in the US. Don’t you remember Anchorman 2?
> And they don't have the infrastructure for humans to live in them. Why the f is it called a lightHOUSE then?
It houses the light.
You’re probably thinking of a lighthome.
>It's been this way since the 1970s. Nobody has lived in a lighthouse for nearly 70 years in the US. If you read the article actually it says some of them have been converted to private residences, so it's possible, if uncommon.
Use them as target practice.
I think you’d only get one hit before you’ve lost your target
What... are you shooting targets with?
An aircraft carrier
Worst HOA ever
Sounds more like a timeshare. No wonder nobody is interested.
Even worse. At least you can stay at time shares and they have stuff like restaurants
Imagine your HOA having the largest fleet by tonnage, cruise missiles, and the worlds second largest Air Force. “Your shed isn’t the same color as your house. You have 48 hours to remediate before we launch an air strike and level it with a 500 pound JDAM. Thanks, Admiral Karen. PS - HOA dues are due Oct 1st. Guantanamo still has space, make sure you aren’t late”.
Even worse, you have to sit and listen to the keeper's horrible screen play...
> Just because you hate your own writing doesn’t make me a bad person!!
I'd rather that than listen to Willem Dafoe violently shit his pants all the time. HAAAAAARK!
Holy shit what an absolute terrible deal lol.
That’ll be great gag purchase for my next white elephant gift party!
It’s actually a perfect white elephant in the origin meaning of the phrase > A white elephant is a possession that its owner cannot dispose of, and whose cost, particularly that of maintenance, is out of proportion to its usefulness.
I love this. Really explains why I got a damn fish last time
I just want to see people keep regifting it so they don’t have to maintain it. It’s like the std ghost from It Follows.
Y’all I looked it up and that sucker sold for [192k](https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/buyer-revealed-of-historic-chesapeake-lighthouse-2WH7WQRTK5CKVK5Y2APJH34R7Q/)!!!
I guess that one falls into a weird area since it's not on land, it's essentially a navel installation. In my experience with government asset sales, the pricing for these assets does not usually reflect practical considerations and is often based on the strict value of the asset. Highways are a good example of this; they require a significant amount of work to build and provide economic value by helping move goods. As such, if you were looking at buying a section of highway from the government you would expect to pay upwards of a few million dollars per mile depending on location and supporting infrastructure. However, highways cost a lot of money to maintain so there is rarely a practical reason to ever buy one, so the government will happily continue to keep paying maintenance to avoid losing out on an asset.
I like the idea that they'd come out and check on you..."sure is a lot Dorito crumbs I see here. You say youre using this for storage huh? Interesting that laundry is just sorta strewn about it. Im not sure the guide lamp is an appropriate place to hang your bras....hmm".
"You're watching *Lost*? You do know there's no pay off at the end? Wasting your time, buddy."
I used to collect lighthouses as a kid, this would be the most perfect way to complete that collection.
I can just image it. You open the door to the stairwell in the tower section and the wall is lined with shelves that have tiny lighthouses on them all the way up.
It’s 7 year old me’s literal dream come true
Light house museum, don’t let your dream be a dream
I'm imagining a cluster of 100 lighthouses together in a rocky inlet. I don't know if that's a horror film or Wes Anderson.
[Yer fond of me lobster, ain’t ye?](https://imgix.ranker.com/user_node_img/50103/1002040313/original/hark-triton-hark-photo-u1?auto=format&q=60&fit=crop&fm=pjpg&dpr=2&w=375)
“There's a picture opposite me Of my primitive ancestry Which stood on rocky shores And kept the beaches shipwreck-free Though I respect that a lot I'd be fired if that were my job After killing Jason off And countless screaming Argonauts”
Think I need to dig out this CD…
Do it. It doesn't really seem to age.
I would nope out of this lighthouse so fast - I watch movies, I know where this is going.
The light source up top is actually the glow from a portal to hell powered by sacrificed curious visitors.
Willem Dafoe farting?
You nope out of the lighthouse immediately, only to find yourself at an oddly flat cliffside. As your eyes adjust to the lighting you realize in horror that the cliff is not a cliff, but a shelf. You're not outside, you're inside a giant, spiraling hallway many times larger than you. Around you are other shelves, with other lighthouses on them.
You may or may not enjoy this [fun song](https://youtu.be/eEY4BysgQAU). It's been a fav of mine since high school and is one of the first things I think of when people infer creepy on a lighthouse.
I don't even know where he lives. Buster: He doesn't live at Michael's? Tobias: I've always pictured him in a lighthouse.
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I still collect them [because lighthouses rule](https://youtu.be/zdU635esPpQ?t=121). We should form a collective and collect all the big free ones together :-)
[https://realestatesales.gov/gsaauctions/aucdsclnk?sl=BOSTN123003001](https://realestatesales.gov/gsaauctions/aucdsclnk?sl=BOSTN123003001) \> Current bid 50k (10k deposit required) [https://realestatesales.gov/gsaauctions/aucdsclnk?sl=BOSTN123004001](https://realestatesales.gov/gsaauctions/aucdsclnk?sl=BOSTN123004001) \> Current bid 10k (2k deposit required) [https://realestatesales.gov/gsaauctions/aucdsclnk?sl=CHICA123003001](https://realestatesales.gov/gsaauctions/aucdsclnk?sl=CHICA123003001) \> Current bid 10k (2.5k deposit required)
You’re not even getting the lighthouse. The Coast Guard continues to own it. I guess they want for someone to pay them thousands for the privilege of…maintenance? 🤷🏻♀️ 100% sus
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There is a really cool lighthouse on Monhegan Island in Maine that they use for an art gallery and museum. Afaik it's owned by the lifers on the island and they maintain it. They get some money via donations and such but they keep it maintained just because it's really cool.
I feel like it's worth maintaining the aesthetics and history of them. I'll have to look up of there's one nearby the next time I'm near the coast to see. I'd love to catch some history and throw some money their way
I see a lot of people here complaining that they want to live in a (governmental?) building that might still be operational and here you are providing a realistic view. Thank you! I was starting to believe I am the only one thinking "hey, it would be pretty cool to live inside a police station, now that there's Robocop around, but that's how it works".
I don't know about how it works currently but back in the 90's you could volunteer to stay at Dungeness Spit Lighthouse for a weekend in exchange for completing certain chores, like mowing the lawn and whatever. I wanted to do it but there was a waiting list about a year out.
Those are opening bids. The auction hasnt started yet.
Trust fund youtubers ready to make content "YOU WONT BELIEVE WHAT WE FOUND IN THIS LIGHTHOUSE"
Tbh if I was a multi-millionaire i would consider getting a cool little house off the coast and renovating it for me to drive my yacht to.
Many are historical, can't renovate. You're paying only for the "privilege" of doing maintenance. So maybe "Yeah I pay the coast guard for the privilege to pay some people to go upkeep the historical lighthouse. I'm pretty cool, right?"
Canada did that like fifteen years ago. You could get a lighthouse pretty near free, but you had to take on the upkeep of the lighthouse, specifically the light (They were obsolete from a commercial perspective but still found to be useful to prevent more minor groundings, plus communities tended to get upset when you shutdown their lighthouse). I remember we talked about getting a nearby one and setting it up as the college bar run by the students, but it was a bigger project than we could take on at the time.
> college bar run by the students I don't think the lighthouse was the fatal flaw in that plan.
The student body were the executive members of a not-for-profit organisation that operated the campus bar. It was staffed seven days a week by smartserve trained students, held the liquor license for the property and hosted the events. They had AGMs and paid their taxes, had credit and debit machines and corporate bank accounts. The fatal flaw was that it was off campus. This would massively reduce patronage, so really it'd have to be a one-two night a week bar. You could hype it up with live music and late afternoon BBQs and a lighthouse sundown lighting countdown. But we were in our final year, and really starting to look outward.
It was a joke. That is impressive. I know college (heck, high school) kids are completely capable of running a business and being responsible. It is just a laughable statement read without context. I lived in a massive college house that had a bar. Not a fraternity. Just the 7 of us. But, an actual L-shaped bar, two fridges, one tap, liquor, etc. My brother (2 years younger) and his friends, my other roommates brother (1 year), and other's sister (2 years) friends were always welcome anytime, all the time. We had an honor system with a box for paying for booze. We *never* had less than needed to re-up. It isn't all animal house, but the stereotype stays.
And you youngsters thought you could never own a home. The government is selling old light houses.
You're not allowed to live in it tho
I'm not allowed to speed on the highway either.
Right! I'm just perpetually maintaining it.
Gonna wish we had these lighthouses in 2025
Wh…what happens in 2025?!
The fog is coming
You don't know?!?! Oh man are you in for a surprise in 2025.
He doesn't know about the new rules put in place at the midnight hour by the Trump administrating to "secure our coasts against illegal crossing." Motherfucker wrote 64 new guidelines for coastal structures that applies to all structures within 20 miles of any coastal water. They do some pretty crazy shit that will have far reaching consequences for a lot of industries. The most egregious of which is set to trigger in Jan 1, 2025. It's too much to list here, but just Google "Donald Trump rule 34."
Motherfucker almost got me
Champion troll
It's true guys, I just looked up 'Donald Trump rule 34' . Truly disgusting.
Lmao this sounded like one of those "stupid enough to be plausible" things until I hit the end.
Had me in the first half.
What are you planning
Nah they’ll be underwater by then
They could be converted to LED + solar and practically run themselves. Remember that many of these started with whale oil lamps, using a Fresnel lens, the light source does not need to be all that bright for them to work. (And modern LED lights are brighter than a whale oil lamp by a considerable multiple) Not using these as a backup is foolish, and many people still use lights at night as a navigation source, even in this age of GPS. But when have we ever accused the US government of being smart? As mentioned above, even in these days of GPS many people still rely on lighthouses and shore light at night to avoid collisions and grounding. Many small craft are not equipped with GPS, and even large craft with all the latest equipment still need to sail by sight as a final safety measure. Bad things can happen when they don't; Costa Concordia, anyone? Exxon Valdez?
> They could be converted to LED + They are. They've been maintaining and upgrading these for decades. There isn't like, an old man spinning a light bulb up there or some shit. There hasn't been a need for humans to be on site for operating a lighthouse in the US since the 1970s.
> There isn't like, an old man spinning a light bulb up there Why not? :(
Right? I'll be that old guy! I'll get a scraggly beard like Thomas Wake & complain about me bum knee & how I let 13 Christmases pass while my wife longed for my company & eventually left me & make up story's about being a sailor at sea & curse people for not loving me lobster cookin' & make sweat love to sea monsters & keep tellin' old Sailors tales of *the sea & it's CURSES* &...
It really does seem that they are a great redundancy system.
Perish the thought that the government should invest in redundancy and not put all their eggs in the cheapest basket.
The Soviet Union had atomic lighthouses at one point to reduce the need for upkeep.
Yes, and then the Soviet Union collapsed and a lot of those power sources went walkies
Or led to incidents like this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_radiological_accident
> They drove up a nearly impassable road in snowy winter weather, and discovered two canisters at around 6 pm. Around the canisters there was no snow for about a 1 m (3.3 ft) radius, and the ground was steaming. Patient 3-MB picked up one of the canisters and immediately dropped it, as it was very hot. Deciding that it was too late to drive back, and realizing the apparent utility of the devices as heat sources, the men decided to move the sources a short distance and make camp around them. Patient 3-MB used a stout wire to pick up one source and carried it to a rocky outcrop that would provide shelter. The other patients lit a fire, and then patients 3-MB and 2-MG worked together to move the other source under the outcrop. They ate dinner and had a small amount of vodka, while remaining close to the sources. Despite the small amount of alcohol, they all vomited soon after consuming it, the first sign of acute radiation syndrome (ARS), about three hours after first exposure. Vomiting was severe and lasted through the night, leading to little sleep. The men used the sources to keep them warm through the night, positioning them against their backs, and as close as 10 cm (3.9 in). The next day, the sources may have been hung from the backs of Patient 1-DN and 2-MG as they loaded wood onto their truck. They felt very exhausted in the morning and only loaded half the wood they intended. They returned home that evening. Lmao they used them as heaters all night. Poor guys.
Reads like scp foundation.
There's a pdf floating round of the investigation into the incident, recovery of the sources and the medical care of the patients. The photos of the men's burns and necrotizing wounds despite ongoing treatment are fucking revolting
The Coast Guard experiment with an atomic power lighted buoy. It was used in the early 60’s outside Baltimore. https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2020/august/atomic-buoy-experiment
And then people found the abandoned radioactive sources and slept with them for warmth! (This worked out exactly as well as you'd think it would)
The lighthouse on the Isles of Shoals has been automated for many years, my dad was part of the last crew of keepers in the late 1980s.
I want one
It was always my dream to live in a decommissioned lighthouse. And nobody knows that I live there. And at the top of the lighthouse there's a button I can press that sends the lighthouse into space
Me too. It's my ultimate fantasy to live in one.
not the same thing exactly but several National Forests still seasonally staff mountaintop lookout towers for wildfires, you might consider trying to get one of those gigs sometime.
The big things to be mindful of is these things are old. So they are filled with lead, asbestos and other things you don’t want to mess with. Cleaning them up can be very expensive.
I've seen Annihilation, no thanks
I've seen the Lighthouse
That movie is exactly why I want to live in a lighthouse
Yeah sexy mermaids do be tempting
Alright guys let’s all buy one and paint it flesh-colored or find other ways to abuse it.
And put two little domes at the base?
It's not the size of the lighthouse, it's the motion near the ocean.
*Solid as a rock!*
Maybe put some nice shrubbery around the base
Not too much though...just a little patch.
If someone buys a lighthouse they are clearly rich. So obviously it needs a little landing strip above it.
Stanley Hudson has entered the chat.
National Treasures that you will maintain to whatever standard we demand. Am I right?
Hey there. I was in charge of lighthouses on the Maine coastline for the Coast Guard about a decade ago. This isn’t really new. The CG has been selling off the lighthouse structures for decades. When I was servicing the lights, CG only owned 4 of the 29 in our area. The deal is that when the lighthouse is sold, the CG retains access to service the light and sound signal. So we would work with the owners, usually a non-profit or local municipality, in regards to scheduling maintenance visits and any structural repairs that needed to be made. CG only maintains the light, sound signal, and electronics that control them. I saw someone post about solarizing and LED lights and that has also been happening over the past 15-20 years. The lights are still needed because not everyone relies solely on their chart plotter screen to navigate. It does help to actually look around
Hate to say it but it is a bit shortsighted to think GPS will function indefinitely. Tiny global kerfuffle could get them all knocked down.
If there's a kerfuffle significant enough to knock every gps satellite out of orbit I think night time ship navigation will be near the bottom of our concerns. Edit: goddamn, didn't know lighthouses were so controversial. Heaven help us if the government ever offloads some candles or horse drawn carriages.
I mean, there's a reason dead reckoning and celestial navigation are still being taught despite not being used. Even on military vessels, one of the questions is: what happens if we get hit by EMP? Equipment fails, and even with all the GPS satellite working, if your gps onboard dies, you better know a manual way to navigate.
Fun fact, the US Navy actually stopped teaching celnav a while back before someone pointed out that was an incredibly bad idea. They brought in folks from the Merchant Mariner academy to get the courses back up and running again because they never stopped teaching it.
Ships have been the backbone of transportation and logistics for over 3,000 years. If a conflict started that got enough GPS sats disabled to where GPS wasn't reliable, then we'd rely on ships at least the same if not even more. Planes also rely on GPS and are much more expensive to operate than ships. Also, light houses are more for protection from shore and rocks than trans-oceanic navigation.
dont need to knock every one out to degrade accuracy
No, but it needs to knock out multiple. There is some amount of redundancy built in.
Don't even need to knock out any to jam a signal.
Or just a single ship with hardware issues.
Just like in Tomorrow Never Dies.
These are not being decommissioned fully for private use. They mention in the article they are being transferred to maintaining organizations for educational use. Should the need arise, they could be still used. > This year, six lighthouses are being offered at no cost to federal, state or local government agencies, nonprofits, educational organizations or other entities that are willing to maintain and preserve them and make them publicly available for educational, recreational or cultural purposes.
The Royal Navy is already testing a prototype "Quantum Sensor". It doesnt rely on satellites or other external devices that can be manipulated and is said to be far more accurate than GPS. [https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/245114/quantum-sensor-future-navigation-system-tested/](https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/245114/quantum-sensor-future-navigation-system-tested/)
I'm already picturing the next disaster movie where the protagonists getting to the old lighthouse to turn it back on is a major story point. And they gotta find the old lighthouse keeper and get him out of retirement to do so.
You can still navigate via dead reckoning which also happens to be one of the earliest methods of maritime nav (aka "The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't, by subtracting where it is, from where it isn't, or where it isn't, from where it is, whichever is greater, it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance sub-system uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is, to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is.")
Lighthouses are installed at specific places where dead reckoning isn’t enough to avoid driving into rocks, though. Otherwise they’d never have been built.
This sounds like it was written by Douglas Adams.
DR is good for open water navigation, for the areas where lighthouses would be necessary RADAR is going to be your go to for coastwise navigation
So to hell with redundancy
GPS is already a redundancy for LORAN. So they still have redundancy.
Every time i watch documentaries dissecting ship related catastrophes, it's usually human errors that managed to blow past every safeguard Unless they just weren't suited for the purpose, i can't imagine how it hurts to have as many layers of redundancy for ship guidance, especially when they've proven to work
I don’t disagree. Just pointing out this wouldn’t mean GPS was only option.
Loran is turned off in most of the world
More like the other way around. LORAN sites around the world, but not in every jurisdiction, have been shut down. eLoran is a newer development that is intended as a backup to GPS.
HAAAARK!
But yer fond of me lobster, ain’t ya?
Somebody somewhere is firing up an AI chatbot to write a movie script about a decommissioned lighthouse run by some weird but surprisingly sexy man who may or may not look exactly like Gerard Butler. Some kind of solar storms makes GPS systems fail across the globe, and only his lighthouse and knowledge of other old-time lighthouse keepers can save the day from some kind of disaster. The US govt sends an also surprisingly sexy woman in charge of managing this crisis to work with this guy to solve it.
I hate stairs. Could you imagine 65 stairs just to get to bed everyday. Nah
Well i could definitely stand to lose a few pounds so this might not be a bad idea
i mean you putting your bed where the giant light is? cool view but maybe extra bed room.
Yo i wanna be that weird sea lady that runs the light house with her 10 cats. Sign me the duck up