[WIP] Lighthouses mod

Originally Posted by gap

While we wait for it to be ready, here are two simple beacons I have modelled during the last few days:

la pyramide des Chaumes - Saint-Clément-des-Baleines, Île de Ré ( 46°14'36.67"N 1°33'12.32"W)

...et l' amer de Plas ar Scoul - Île de Sein (48° 2'27.45"N 4°52'8.91"W)

Very nice work !

Originally Posted by gap

They are daymarks (no lights). See if you can spot them with your binoculars

No problem ! Send me the D/L link.

[gap]

Originally Posted by gap

See if you can spot them with your binoculars

Originally Posted by Kendras

No problem ! Send me the D/L link.

I meant these binoculars, not these ones:

 

Out of jokes: the two beacons are still in wings format, but you can start adding coordinates for them and for the Tourelle du Chat (48°01'26"N 4°48'51"W), both in our mis and Locations.cfg files

Originally Posted by gap

Out of jokes: the two beacons are still in wings format, but you can start adding coordinates for them and for the Tourelle du Chat (48°01'26"N 4°48'51"W), both in our mis and Locations.cfg files

Not in Locations.cfg, because they are very small and local marks, and they should be visible on the navmap only when at visual range.

[gap]

Originally Posted by Kendras

Not in Locations.cfg, because they are very small and local marks, and they should be visible on the navmap only when at visual range.

Well, we might mark them on map with a small icon. Just a square or a triangle, depending on their shape, without text:





A thought: should we include in this mod lightvessels?

Originally Posted by gap

Well, we might mark them on map with a small icon. Just a square or a triangle, depending on their shape, without text:

Yes OK. I prefer the first version.

Originally Posted by gap

A thought: should we include in this mod lightvessels?

Well, if you want to model them, why not ?

[gap]

Originally Posted by Kendras

Yes OK. I prefer the first version.

Me too

Originally Posted by Kendras

Well, if you want to model them, why not ?

For a start, what do we know about French light vessels active during the 40's? Information on the French Wikipedia article on the topic is quite meagre...

Originally Posted by gap

For a start, what do we know about French light vessels active during the 40's? Information on the French Wikipedia article on the topic is quite meagre...

From this article : https://www.cairn.info/revue-guerres...4-page-109.htm

Originally Posted by Jean-Marc Fichou

"Au cours de cette période pour le moins confuse, le Service des phares conserve un semblant d’organisation mais ne parvient pas à empêcher la destruction du bateau-feu Dick, coulé le 24 mai 1940 par les Junkers de la Luftwaffe, ni celle du phare d’Ault. Par ailleurs un certain nombre de destructions d’appareils sont prescrites par la Marine française au moment du « repli » dans la région du Nord et dans le port militaire de Cherbourg. On peut toutefois s’interroger sur l’absence coupable de précautions élémentaires pour protéger ce type de bâtiments particulièrement exposés et totalement désarmés : que fait le bateau-feu au large de Dunkerque quinze jours après l’offensive allemande ? À la suite de cet accident, les autres bateaux-feux quittent leurs postes pour se réfugier à La Rochelle."

Originally Posted by Jean-Marc Fichou

"La flotte, elle aussi, est littéralement anéantie. En 1945, il ne reste plus qu’un seul bateau-feu en état de fonctionnement, le Havre-1912, et un autre en restauration, le Dick-1935. Une coque est récupérée à Anvers mais vendue à la ferraille en raison de son trop mauvais état ; une autre coque fut signalée aux Pays-Bas mais c’était une épave irréparable. Le Sandéttié, coulé dans le port de La Rochelle, exige des réparations de renflouement si considérables que l’on ne les entreprend pas."

[gap]

Information on the Dick light vessel is a bit confusing:

• in the first excerpt from Les phares français pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale quoted by you, Fichou states that the ship was sunk by the Luftwaffe on 24 May 1940. The text seems to suggest that the ship was sunk off Dunkerque, but nothing is said about her station and/or homeport.
  
  
• wrecksite.eu has a French lightship named Dyck (with the "y") in its database. Built in 1935 and sunk during an air raid on 25/05/1940 (about the same date as stated by Fichou), the ship had a tonnage of 500 grt and she was 42.5 m long by 6.25 m wide. The accompanying text states:
  
  

  Originally Posted by wrecksite.eu

  Ship based in Calais (region Nord-Pas de Calais). Was attacked by 3 German planes at 4 n. m. NE of her home port by bomb and machine gun. She sank without casualties. The crew was rescued by the patrol Joseph Marie with abother fron a minesweeper sunk during the same attack

  Information on wreck position is only accessible to wrecksite.eu's premium members.The coordinates 51°06'56N, 02°14'16E are given in a note as a possible alternative though, and they are compatible both with the attack location stated elsewhere in the same website (NE of Calais) and with the position suggested by Fichou (off Dunkirk). It is not clear if that was ship's work station too, despite the fact that she had Calais, not Dunkirk, as home port.
  
  Last, this is a picture of the ship provided by the website:
  
  
  
  
• The French Wikipedia article I had previously mentioned, under the paragraph Bateaux-feux encore visibles, mentions a Havre III lightship built as Dyck in 1935 and stationed 7 miles S of Cap de la Hève until 1981. Original text:
  
  

  Originally Posted by fr.wikipedia.org

  Le bateau-feu français Havre III (ex-Dyck), également au Havre, se visite depuis sa restauration ; il a été construit en 1935 et affecté au Havre en 1948 à 7 milles au sud du cap de la Hève jusqu'en 1981, où il a été remplacé par une bouée-phare. Il est amarré dans le bassin Vauban, devant le centre commercial des Docks Vauban, au Havre (ancien musée maritime et portuaire).

  Name and year of construction correspond to the ones reported by the previous source, but all the rest is a mismatch.
  
  
• bateaux-fecamp.fr has pictures of a "Havre III ex Dyck" light ship built in 1935 whose dimensions are given as 42.50 m by 6.65 m. This ship was apparently decommissioned in 1981 and is now used as museum ship in Le Havre's port.
  
  Ship name, year of construction and dimensions are in accordance with the ship listed in wrecksite.eu but, similar to what is reported by Wikipedia, this ship is still afloat.
  
  Recent pictures show that, if not identical, the ship currently in Le Havre is very similar to the ship of the same name sunk off Dunkirk though:
  
  
  
  
• More details on the "Havre III ex Dyck" are provided by worldlighthouses.org:
  
  

  Originally Posted by worldlighthouses.org

  
  - active lightship from 1935 until 1983 -
  
  
  Technical data
  
  Length: 42,50 m
  Beam: 6,25 m
  Draught: 4,60 m
  Displacement: 523 tons
  
  Year of construction: 1935
  Shipyard: FCM in Havre-Graville, France
  Material: steel
  Elevation: 15 m
  Range: 17 sm
  Crew: 8 men changing every 15 days
  
  History
  
  1935 commissioned
  1935-1939 Dunkerque station
  1939-1945 during WWII withdrawn and sent to La Pallice
  1949-1981 Le Havre station
  1981 sent for automation
  1981-1983 Le Havre station

  Ship name, technical data and year of commissioning are in accordance with all the previous sources, but the ship is said to have been moved for the durion of the war from Dunkirk to La Pallice (La Rochelle) and to have been sent to Le Havre in 1949. This is something not mentioned neither by worldlighthouses.org nor by wikipedia (which, on turn, states Cap de la Hève as ship's station until 1981), but it might partly be in accordance with Fichou, where he states that after the sinking of the Dick, all the other French light vessels were withdrawn from service and moved to La Rochelle.
  
  
• Last: in your second quote Fichou mentions a 1935 light vessel named Dick (with the "i", not the "y") being restored in 1945 (probably after the end of the war). He doens't say that she is the same vessel that he had reported elsewhere in the same paper as sunk in May 1940, but that's a likely assumption.

Summing up, we can conclude that:

there were two sister or nearly-sister light ships with almost identical names, both built the same year, one of them being stationed in the Calais/Dunkerque area and being sunk in May 1940, the other dispatched off cap de la Hève until the sinking of her sister, when she was withdrawn from service and sheltered in La Pallice until the end of the conflict, at which point she was restaured/modernized, renamed Havre, and re-stationed to Le Havre. This conclusion would assume several coincidences (too many to be likely). Those might explain the many contradictions between the various sources (they might have mixed up the histories of the two vessels)...

An alternative, and more realistic, explaination is that the Dick and the Dyck/Havre III are actually the same vessel, commissioned in 1935, registered in Calais, stationed off Dunkerque during the first part of the conflict, sunk in 1940 and salvaged/restored in 1945. What is curious, is that none of the sources mentioned above seems to be aware of this salvaging that might provide the trait d'union between the Dyck and the Havre III

[gap]

Originally Posted by Kendras

Do you find it funny, Whatson?

Well, right, this deserves a complete investigation. What a mess in these (this?) ships' story!...

[gap]

Originally Posted by Kendras

Well, right, this deserves a complete investigation. What a mess in these (this?) ships' story!...

Yes, a real mess, and I have discovered why: those ships, as commissioned, were often named after the sandbank / shoal that they were inteded for, but it was common practice to change their designation name when, for any reason, they had to be changed of station, the new (unofficial) name being painted on both sides of the hull.
Apparently, the vessel sunk in 1940 that Fichou and wrecksite.eu are referring to, was built in 1921 as Sandettié and at the time of her sinking she was the relief (=reserve) lightvessel of the bank bringing the same name.



On the other hand, the museum ship currently moored in Le Havre with the name of Havre III (that all the pictures and technical data I posted yesterday refer to), is the real Dyck built in 1935, used as primary lightship of the same sandbank at the outbreak of WWII (thence the confusion), and withdrwan from service shortly after the sinking of her "sister".



More details on the Dyck (1935) available here
More details on the lightships off Dunkerque available here

Mistery solved

[gap]

The plans of another French lightship named Sandettié:




This one was built in 1902 and sank in 1933, but its hull shape shouldn't be too dissimilar from the one of the more modern Dyck (1935), as they both were a "deep keel" design. Source: https://www.facebook.com/PharesdeFra...67333483286980

Originally Posted by gap

Mistery solved

[MLF]

Returning to La Tourelle de La Plate

Originally Posted by gap

I am afraid the yellow/black cardinal mark system has been introduced after WWII. In any case, the historical picture you have posted here a few days ago seems to discard it. Pity, because it looked very cool

Plain (dark) green, plain red and red with a central black band, all are likely alternatives with their own pro's and con's. Unless we find information on the paint scheme actually used at the time, I have no real preference for one or the other. Most of my remarks on the subject are more me thinking out loud, than actually suggesting/discarding any of the aforementioned options

I emailed the Service de l'Inventaire du Patrimoine Culturel Direction du Tourisme, du Patrimoine et des Voies navigables who replied with a b/w photograph from 1950 (possibly has already been seen on this thread) which shows the tower with a dark top and light coloured bottom. They also referred me to the following web site:-

http://www.dirm.nord-atlantique-manche-ouest.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/sites-des-subdivisions-des-phares-balises-a62.html

From that web site I emailed the address given there and received a reply and a scan of a notice to mariners dated 31/03/1922 basically stating that the light, which had been reported extinguished, was now back up and working.

There is also a section on the notice - Renseignements (Information) which states the following:-

Nature:- Permanent gas light
Shape:- Turret painted in red surmounted by a reservoir and a lantern
Colour of Light: Green


As, I believe, this department is responsible for the painting of these light towers, this is about as close as we will possibly get to knowing the colour of the tower

Regards,

MLF