COUNTYWIDE : Old Lens Gives Way to New at Lighthouse

After guiding sailors for 52 years with three flashes of light a minute, a brass-mounted crystal lens from the Anacapa Island lighthouse has been replaced by modern technology.

The Coast Guard on Wednesday turned the nine-foot circular lens over to the Channel Island National Park, which will display it in about a month at the island’s visitors center.

The new light is less attractive, but it will be easier to maintain, officials said.

Only eight of the old-style lenses are used in 25 working lighthouses in California. One is at Port Hueneme, Coast Guard spokeswoman Helen Denny said.

Since the 1970s, it has become increasingly difficult to find people to service the handmade lenses.

“We’re gradually having to replace them,” Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Alan Carver said.

The Anacapa lighthouse, the only one on the Channel Islands, has helped sailors navigate the Santa Barbara Channel since 1912. The lens, in place since 1938, was part of a system of lenses that rotated around a 1,000-watt light bulb, creating a flash every 20 seconds visible for 20 miles.

The lens has been replaced by a plainer-looking parabolic reflector, Rear Adm. Marshall E. Gilbert said. The older type, called Fresnel lenses, “are really classic works of art,” he said.

Officials displayed only the center of the lens at a reception Wednesday. Assembled, it consists of four pyramid-shaped lenses around the circular lens on a 40-inch steel base.