Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse has a new light
The mounted disk flashed every six seconds.
“This is it,” said Art Greene, a volunteer tour guide – or “keeper” based on his name badge, as he climbed the final rungs of the ladder leading to the stuffy and cramped light room atop the Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse.
The beacon has a new LED light, replacing the nearly 70-year-old incandescent one.
It wasn’t blinding from up there, but this new light can be seen up to 10 nautical miles away, even as a ribbon of fog stretched across the water and the first row of homes near Willard Beach on Tuesday morning.
The U.S. Coast Guard has been actively replacing old lights with LEDs because they are more efficient, require minimal maintenance and have a 10-year lifespan, Greene said.
This is the fourth light in the beacon’s history. The new one maintains the most recent signature— a flash every six seconds, and a fog signal every 10 seconds when conditions warrant it.
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The lighthouse was originally built in 1897 with a 5th order Fresnel lens with six bullseyes. The beacon, a cast iron structure mounted on a cement cylinder, was built after several shipwrecks in the late 1800s, alerting seafarers to the dangerous rocky ledge that lurked 12 feet below the surface during the average low tide.
A LED lens was recently installed in the lantern room of Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse in South Portland. Volunteer Art Greene of Scarborough said that the lens is the fourth light to be in operation at the lighthouse that looks out over Portland Harbor. (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image
A keeper and his assistant lived in the spark plug lighthouse, which was in the middle of the water until the breakwater was completed in 1951. The damp first floor was the galley, reconstructed with a wood stove, rocking chair, hutch, sink with a pump and rag rug to demonstrate what life could have been like. Climb up the narrow stairs, and you reach the head keeper’s room, with a bed, desk, two closets and panoramic views of the water.
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“The poor assistant above only had portholes,” Greene said. And a ladder sliced through the darker bedroom, providing easy access to the light in case of emergency.
Each night, the keepers kept the light burning from sunset to sunrise with whale oil and kerosene. They cleaned the soot and grime from the lens and trimmed the wicks, earning them the nickname “wickies.”
Art Greene climbs from the assistant keeper’s quarters up to the watch room of Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse. (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image
Every two hours at night, one of the keepers wound the clockwork – the mechanism that turned the light and struck the bell. The counterweight slowly dropped down the center of the structure.
The oil-powered lamp was replaced in 1934 with an incandescent lamp – a barrel lens that magnified the beam. It’s the same kind of light used in theatrical spotlights and airport runways, Greene said. The underwater cable also ran to nearby Bug Light, both of which were controlled at Spring Point.
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The light was fully automated in the 1960s, with a plastic Lexan lens, and the Coast Guard keepers were at last removed. The light featured six bulbs, and one was used at a time. When all six burned out, that’s when they were replaced.
Greene handled some of these old bulbs, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. It worked for a while, but the Coast Guard decided that it was time for an upgrade, switching out the lens a couple of weeks ago.
Greene, the co-chair of the Spring Point Ledge Trust, said that the recently installed LED lens is the fourth light to be in operation at the lighthouse. (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image
From the top room of the lighthouse, Greene watched boats of various sizes cut through the water that reflected the sky’s grayness. Portland Head Light was shrouded in a cloak of fog in the distance.
A tour boat zipped north past this smaller beacon.
“Everything that comes into Portland has to go by this lighthouse,” Greene said.
Through a radio channel, that boat triggered the now-electronic fog signal that sits next to its predecessor – a 1,000 pound fog bell built in 1887. It hummed every 10 seconds, a signal that would last 40 minutes or longer, depending on if another boat alerted the same conditions.
The slice of light between the red plastic panels on the southern side guided this ship safely into Portland’s water, a modern replacement of the old wooden box that used to serve the same purpose.
Greene walks along the main gallery of Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse in South Portland. (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image
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Tagged: Bug Light Park, lighthouse, SMCC
Dana Richie is a community reporter covering South Portland and Cape Elizabeth. Originally from Atlanta, she fell in love with the landscape and quirks of coastal New England while completing her undergraduate. More by Dana Richie
