Touring the USCG National Aids to Navigation Museum

Last week, I was treated to a tour of the USCG Training Center in Yorktown, Virginia. As many times as I've been to Yorktown, I had no idea this beautiful facility was right there on the waterfront near the battleground.

I did know that the Coast Guard was in Yorktown...somewhere, and yes, I had even heard that they had a few lenses on display.

The Training Center, situated on the York River at Wormley Creek, is the Coast Guard's largest training command, providing instruction in all of the Coast Guard's operational programs. Located there is the National Aids to Navigation School, and inside this school on the first deck is an atrium, home to eleven 1st through 6th Order Fresnel Lenses, along with other aids to navigation, and many artifacts.

My host and tour guide for the day was my friend, CDR John Little, Chief Fifth USCG Aids to Navigation. Joining us for lunch at the Yorktown Pub was the school chief, LCDR Jim Bellaire.
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CDR Little is standing beside a lightship lens, which Harbour Lights recently released as a miniature and called it the "Yorktown Lightship Lens" having used this as their model. A HL version, a gift from Harbour Lights, is displayed in LCDR Bellaire's office. The lens pictured at the right is a 4th Order Fixed.

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Some on-site training is featured at the entrance to the school.
And more...
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Looking down into the atrium from the balcony. Pictured is a 1st Order with a 2nd order bi-valve...
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Here's a close up of the 2nd Order Bi-Valve which came from the Dry Tortuges Light in Florida.
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And an inside view...
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Here's the 1st Order with me in front. The lens, which came from Fowey Point, Florida, stands 10' 7" including the base and is 6'1" across the inside at the focal plane.
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A 4th Order Bi-Valve with a rotating drum...
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More coming in the next post...

Judy

Continuing on,

4th Order Fresnel Lens; a rotating drum lens with 12 bull's eyes. Built by L. Sautter & Co, Paris France. This lens was used as the model for HL658, and so, looked very familiar!
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For a change of pace, a buoy lantern. A 6th Order can be seen in the background.
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Automatic bulb changers...
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A 3rd Order. Beside it to the left is a model of the USCGC CACTUS.
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And since I messed up that ship model, here's another. This is the USCGC KICKAPOO. The cutter is 75' long with a 100' barge.
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And another...A 75' Buoy tender with barge
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A modern day range light system...
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And a 5th Order Fresnel
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More...

Judy

And then back outside.
More on-site training...It's all there but the water. Is this a Coast Guard play ground?

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A great day, and I wanted to share with you. If you haven't been, it's well worth the trip. You'll need to go through security and make an appointment, but it helps getting past the guard gate to just ride in with the Commander.

And if you've been to Yorktown, but not recently, look what all is happening at the waterfront!
Yorktown Riverwalk

Hope you enjoy!

Judy

Thanks for the pictures Judy! I will in VA in a couple of weeks for a niece's High School graduation so I may try to go out and do this tour. I also want to try and go back to the Mariners Museum again. I haven't been there in many many moons. Was either a grade school or middle school field trip I think, if that give anyone a clue as to how many moons lol

Any idea how far in advance an appointment has to be made? Maybe I'm too late?? I hope not.

Judy,

Is this facility open to the public?

I got the impression that you got a special tour of this place. Is it on an active base?

Dennis

Very Cool Judy! Looks like you found the motherload of Fresnel Lenses.
Bob

It's by appointment, Dennis, and yes, it is most definitely an active base. My tour was by invitation. However, I got the impression from the school chief that they would enjoy having interested parties (like us lighthouse folks). They just are not equipped for tours coming through like a regular museum.

The Chesapeake Society has scheduled a visit in July as part of the Hampton Roads Bus Trip.

So Melody, Dennis, and anyone else...the contact number to schedule an appointment is listed on this page:
USCG Aids to Navigation Museum

Hope you get to go and see this.

Judy

Thanks for the great photos, Judy. Yorktown looks like a great place to visit.
Judy

The ANT school is a great place to visit. Heather and I visited about 6 years ago (always handy to have that military ID...). We just walked into the school lobby and took in the sights. The OIC of the school saw us and came out and visited with us a few minutes.

Turning up the wayback machine, you find these two old threads:

Lens discussion

Discussion on visiting the Chesapeake Bay area

Here are the pictures no longer in the other threads:





These threads predate the HL introduction of the fourth order lens. . . . did these threads bring a cool lens to their attention???

Judy,

Thanks for the link!

What a great trip, Judy! You certainly had quite an experience with that tour.

Bob

Dave, the links from the "wayback" machine are co...ool! Thanks for bringing those up.

It was a great experience, and Melody, you're welcome for the link. Please go and bring back more pictures!

To live 1 1/2 hours from Yorktown and not to have seen this before now. Worse than that, I lived 15 minutes from there nine years ago and spent many hours in Yorktown.

I'm glad to have been able to share with you, and it was fun to do the "wayback" tour too.

If Harbour Lights is watching this time...I'm ready for a 1st Order Fresnel! Hint, hint

Judy

Judy,

I'll keep this place in mind for the enxt time I'm in the yorktown area.

Esther likes Williamsburg and we haven't been there for quite some time. I might plan a late Fall or Christmas time trip to the area this year. Christmas in Williamsburg is very nice.

Dennis

Judy is so "on the money" about the ANT School. The display of lenses is one of the nicest you will ever see. I wonder if they were able to find a 3½ that they didn't have. The atrium the lenses are displayed in is a really nice setting.

Judy was very fortunate to have a personal tour from the school OIC. Can't get too much better than that!

As a suggestion to those who like to explore: search the Forum archives. There are so many great trip reports and discussions in the archives that you can benefit from. One of the links I provided was a very interesting discussion about lenses that we had several years ago. You can search for mentions of a specific light or location and see what mentions there were, or you can just set the display to the "show them all" and look thru the pages of thread titles.

Dave, I don't think so. The only lens I seemed to have missed getting a photo of was the 4th Order that came from Thimble Shoals, VA, and I'm also going by the information from the beautiful brochure LCDR Bellaire provided me.

Judy

Just surfing through the various forum pages and landed here... WOW - what a brilliant set of pictures. We got real green with envy ... It is a crying shame that the UK has not got such wonderful displays!
Thanks fro sharing these with us!

The Chesapeake Chapter, USLHS, is having a trip to the USCG Museum on July 16th. It's a bus trip so that we could have permission to bring in a large number of people. Robert and I are coordinating the trip. We will also stop at Fr. Monroe, and Old Point Comfort will be open for climbing. Then off to Ft. Story, were you will climb both the old and NEW Henry's. John Starling will be our docent at Ft. Story and will include a complete tour of the bunkers, old chapel, etc.

Join us if you can.

Joyce