Lightships and Lighthouses

by Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot

The lighthouse, the landing-stage, and other appurtenances, are executed in Cornish granite throughout. The blocks were fashioned from picked stone of fine, close, hard grain, and ranged up to 4 and 5 tons in weight. The method of construction followed the approved lines of to-day, in which each stone is dovetailed into its neighbour, above, below, and on either side. As the stones were cut and fitted in the Cornish quarries, they were set up and fitted course by course. Then, when they had met the approbation of the engineer deputed for this duty, they were numbered and given other identification marks, so that upon reaching the base at Rock Island, upon the Irish mainland, within easy reach of the Fastnet, they could be despatched in rotation to the site, to be set in position.

It was in August, 1896, that the first little squad of labourers landed on the Fastnet, under the superintendence of James Kavanagh, a first-class all-round mason—one of those men who occupy a unique position when emergency calls. He was just the type of foreman that the task demanded, careful, daring, a hard worker, zealous, dauntless. Once he had landed on the rock to prepare the foundations, he seldom left it; and, what is more, every stone constituting the tower was well and truly laid by his own hand. It was indeed unfortunate that Kavanagh, after his momentous round of toil was over, should be stricken down with apoplexy, to which he succumbed, after virtually years of imprisonment upon an ill-famed rock, facing discomforts and privations of all descriptions, and seizing every opportunity to drive the task forward. It was as if Nature, baffled in her efforts to circumvent the work of human ingenuity, had taken revenge upon the man who had laboured mightily to complete her subjection.

Kavanagh took with him upon the rock a small boiler and steam-winch, which he set up without delay, to land both workmen and necessaries. He lost no time in cutting away at the toe of the cliff, to admit the first partial ring of stones. It was a ding-dong battle between the masons and the sea for the first few rounds. The men toiled heroically with their chisels between the coming of the rollers, with one eye on the water and the other on a handy life-line, which they grabbed when the Atlantic endeavoured to steal a march upon them. On some days splendid progress was made; on others the masons never drove the chisels once into the rock-face.

Landing was an exciting experience in itself. The tender, naturally, could not draw right in, owing to the swell and other dangers. She stood off a little way, and there anchored. When men were coming to or going from the rock, the rope was run out from the derrick. To this was attached a kind of double stirrup, not unlike a child’s swing. The men took up their position, two at a time, on these stirrups, standing face to face. At the command, “Lower away!” or “Heave ho!” the derrick winch commenced to grunt and rattle, and the men were whisked into mid-air, clutching tightly to their frail, cramped hold, and steadied in their aerial journey by another rope extending to the rowing-boat below. It was an exciting trip while it lasted, and at first glimpse appeared to be dangerous, so much so that on one or two occasions the courage of raw hands broke down at the last moment, and they hesitated to trust themselves to such a flimsy-looking vehicle.

Bringing the stones ashore was even more difficult. It was imperative that the edges and corners of the blocks should be protected from blows which might chip and scar them, thereby impairing their true fit, and possibly allowing the sea to get a purchase in its efforts to destroy. Accordingly, the blocks were packed in skeleton crates, with substantial wooden battens completely protecting the vital parts. It was impossible to swing them singly direct through the air from steamer to rock, and it was inadvisable to transfer them first to a rowing-boat; so an ingenious alternative method was perfected. The tender was brought as near the rock as possible, and the derrick boom was swung out, so that a hook carried at the end of the rope could be attached to the stone, which rested on rollers upon the tender’s deck leading to an open doorway in the taffrail. When the rope was secured, the word was given to haul in the derrick rope slowly and gently. This brought the stone gradually to the vessel’s side, when it was permitted to fall into the water where it could suffer no injury. The derrick rope meanwhile was wound in, and the stone, still submerged, at last brought to rest against the side of the tower.

A vertical series of wooden battens had been attached to the outside of the building, so as to form a slide up which the blocks could be hauled to the required level. Of course, as the tower increased in height, the latter part of the operation had to be varied, owing to the concave curve of the structure. Then the stone had to complete its final stage through the air, being steadied in its ascent by a rope held below to prevent it swinging and coming to grief against the completed part of the shaft. In this manner 2,074 stones, representing a dead-weight of 4,633 tons, were landed and set in position.

Work was painfully slow and tedious at times, owing to adverse weather. Although the men on the rock were condemned inevitably to periods of idleness, they were made as comfortable as conditions would permit, so as to remove any longing on their part to return to the mainland for a change. This was a necessary precaution. Although the men might leave the rock in perfectly calm weather, the Atlantic is so fickle that an interval of two or three hours was quite sufficient to permit the wind to freshen, and the swell to grow restive, to such a degree as to render a return to the rock impossible for several days. Owing to the cramped nature of the quarters on the rock, elaborate care had to be exercised to protect the men from the ravages of disease. The toilers had to board themselves, and the authorities demanded that each man should maintain a fortnight’s reserve supply of provisions upon the rock to tide him over a spell of bad weather. This rule was enforced very rigidly, any infringement of it being attended with instant dismissal. For emergency purposes the Commissioners maintained a small stock of salt beef, pork, tinned meats, tea, sugar, milk, biscuits, and so forth, on the rock, from which the men could replenish their larders. The foreman acted as a kind of medical officer of health, as well as fulfilling his other duties. He was supplied with a ship’s medicine-chest, plenty of bandages, liniment, and antiseptics, in case of accident. At five o’clock every morning the men were compelled to tumble out of their bunks, to indulge in a thorough wash, to turn their bedding into the air when the weather was agreeable, and to wash out their quarters. The strictest supervision was maintained over matters pertaining to sanitation, and, thanks to these elaborate precautions, cases of sickness were very few.

Extreme care was observed in the building operations, so that no workman might be exposed to any unnecessary risks, although the task at times bristled with unavoidable perils. As a matter of fact, the whole enterprise was attended by only three accidents on the rock. One man was cutting a tram-rail, when a piece of steel flew into one eye, completely blinding it. Another suffered a similar calamity from a chip of stone while quarrying. The third man met misfortune while at work at the windlass of the derrick. As a breaker rolled in, his companion dropped his handle, with the result that the other workman was knocked down and had one leg broken. There was a true Hibernian flavour about this last-named accident, in keeping with the setting in which it occurred. The man was incapacitated for some months, and then brought an action for compensation, claiming that he had been rendered unfit for any further manual labour. The sympathetic court solaced him with an award of £350, or $1,750. The amazement and disgust of the engineer may be imagined when, three months after the action, he suddenly espied the supposedly totally incapacitated workman assisting in the transference of coal from a barge to the tender!

By courtesy of the “Scientific American.”