Port Entry Lights Assure Commuters a Safe Passage from Staten Island to Manhattan

Background

The purpose of the project was to provide additional visual aid to navigation in times of reduced day/night visibility to the fleet of ferries. The PEL are installed to guide the ferries into their berths at Whitehall Ferry Terminal (Manhattan) and St Georges Ferry Terminal (Staten Island), reducing the chance of incident while docking and to ensure the safe arrival of commuters.

The Staten Island Ferry runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and is the only non-vehicle mode of transport between Staten Island and Manhattan. The nine-vessel fleet provides 70,000 passengers a day (22 million people a year) with the ferry service between St. George on Staten Island and Whitehall Street in Lower Manhattan. The Staten Island Ferry is the most reliable form of mass transit and is a favorite of tourists visiting New York City as it provides excellent views of the lower Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty at no cost to riders.

The visual aid is in addition to radar electronic charts and GPS, with the end goal being to reduce risk through Sealite technology. The lights are activated only when there is low visibility, and when the Captain sees a steady light he knows he is heading in the correct direction.

– Joe Richter, Sea Safety International.

Solution

The benefit of a programmable flash pattern of each LED and the light intensity piercing through low visibility weather conditions in the last 1.5NM approach to berth was the major benefit in using Sealite’s PEL. The additional advantage of its compact form factor, lightweight and IP67 rated weatherproof enclosure, gave the Staten Island Ferry Captain the confidence that the product would withstand the unpredictable and harsh weather conditions.

Advanced features of the Sealite PEL including convenient PC programming via USB, high visibility, low power consumption, and monitoring and reporting were the main reason Sealite was selected. Programming is achieved via a built-in weatherproof port, eliminating the need to open the unit and expose it to the elements. The port entry light will not require focusing or re-lamping while in service.

Port Entry Light (PEL)

The PEL can be configured to suit many channel marking and leading line applications and there are two versions available with different overall beam widths. The light is designed to suit high- precision sector applications and provides a measured changeover between colour sectors of typically one minute of arc.

The light also comes ready for interfacing with Type 1 and Type 3 AIS or GSM monitoring solutions, allowing maintenance personnel the convenience of monitoring the light through their cellular phones or web portal. Sealite’s 10 degree PEL is a low-powered, high intensity, precision sectored light, with a nighttime visible range of up to 20NM and a daytime visible range of 3.5NM. Providing over 120,000cd at 30 watts, the Sealite PEL is extraordinarily efficient and with its ultra-compact design, it removes the need for split-assemblies and realignment on difficult sites.