Monday, October 7, 2013

Favaritx






Cap de Favàritx stands 47 metres above sea level with a height of 21 metres. Its light has a range of 16 nautical miles and the light flashes every 15 seconds in a pattern of 2+1.

The development of this lighthouse was a milestone in the history of the island’s coastline along with the other two northern lighthouses of Punta Nati and Cap de Cavalleria.

Numerous shipwrecks particularly in the early 1900s due to the rocky northerly coast and the punishing Tramuntana  winds lead to the development of the lighthouse to prevent such occurances in the future.



The shipwrecks of the “Isaac Pereyre” in 1906 and the “General Chanzy” in 1910 were particularly notorious. The first was a steam packet covering the route between Marseille and Algiers and was wrecked in the same spot where the “Ville de Rome” also owned by the French Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, had foundered in March 1898.

It was designed by Mauro Serret but modified by Miguel Massanet. Work began in July in 1917 but the lack of funding and the protests of the owner of the site for not having received compensation paralysed the works and the lighthouse was not completed until 1922, entering service on the 22nd September.. The light used a catadioptric lens manufactured by BBT with two 85mm Chance lamps producing a light pattern of 2+1 every 10 seconds. This lens is now on display at the Portopi museum in Mallorca. The tower, with a height of 33m was the first to be built completely of concrete in the Balearic Islands. The lantern, which had a diameter of 3m was manufactured by La Maquinista Valenciana.

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