May 23rd 2014: Lightning.

[Carruthers]

Originally Posted by BigV

It is a lovely photograph.

Yes, it featured prominently on the front page of The Times on Wednesday this week, and in several other national newspapers as well.

Thanks for the explanation of the technicalities. I wouldn't have a clue where to start, but at least I can appreciate the end product.

This is somewhat tangential to the thread, but this letter appeared in The Times this morning:

It is 500 years since Henry VIII signed the decree which put Trinity House in charge of navigation

Sir, Your front-page photograph (May 21) of lightning over the Trinity House lighthouse at St Catherine’s Point on May 20 was more than a good photo — it was a unique celebration of 500 years of the service Trinity House has given to mariners around our shores; for it was on May 20, 1514, that Henry VIII signed a decree directing Trinity House “to regulate pilotage navigation of shipping in our streams”.

Trinity House has been doing that ever since, and St Catherine’s is one of the many hundreds of seamarks we have around our coast marking our shipping lanes and keeping our mariners safe. As an acknowledged world leader in the safety of navigation it is fitting that its 500th anniversary should be so recognised.

Jeremy de Halpert

Petersfield, Hampshire.

[xoxoxoBruce]

On the same tangent.
With all the ships bustling in, out, and around, England...er, Great Britain, and all those pointy rocks along the edge, traffic control would have become a priority long ago... 500 years long ago.

Looks like Trinity Leith came first with the nod from King Robert II in 1380.

Trinity House was the headquarters of the Incorporation of Masters and Mariners, a trade incorporation and charitable organisation founded in the 14th century when the shipowners and shipmasters of Leith formed a Fraternity (from which the name, Trinity, may derive).

But they must have pissed somebody off because in 1514 King Henry VIII gave Trinity Strond the royal nod. I wonder if he lopped off Leith's head?

The Corporation of Trinity House of Deptford Strond,[1] known as Trinity House (formally The Master Wardens and Assistants of the Guild Fraternity or Brotherhood of the most glorious and undivided Trinity and of St. Clement in the Parish of Deptford Strond in the County of Kent), is a private corporation governed under a Royal Charter (rather than a non-departmental public body).

It has three core functions: it is the official General Lighthouse Authority for England, Wales, the Channel Islands and Gibraltar, responsible for the provision and maintenance of navigational aids, such as lighthouses, lightvessels, buoys, and maritime radio/satellite communication systems. Trinity House is also an official deep sea pilotage authority, providing expert navigators for ships trading in Northern European waters. It is also a maritime charity, dispersing funds for the welfare of retired seamen, the training of young cadets and the promotion of safety at sea...

Aside - I think "seamarks" used in the editors letter rolls off the tongue much more pleasantly than light houses.

[Carruthers]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

On the same tangent.
With all the ships bustling in, out, and around, England...er, Great Britain, and all those pointy rocks along the edge, traffic control would have become a priority long ago... 500 years long ago.

Have a look here Bruce, for today's maritime traffic and zoom in on the straits of Dover:

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yes I've seen several similar sites showing ship or plane traffic these days, it's really bedlam around the popular destinations.
But 500 years ago there was far less traffic on the seas... except around England. Not only ships bringing booty from the empire, and shipping the undesirables out, but moving things like coal around the home island. Lots of traffic, lots of wrecks, lots of heroics, and lots deaths.

Oh, and lots of tragedies... like the money lost by the ship owners when it sank with all hands.
Of course that led to the founding of Lloyd's, but that's another tangent.