DUNGENESS SPIT — New Dungeness Lighthouse Association volunteers Monday morning carried scaffolding piece by piece up the 74-step spiral stair and erected it around the lighthouse’s glassed-in lamp room in preparation for replacing the cracked and corroded vent ball atop the 63-foot tower.
The crew of six did so without the assistance of crew members from the Coast Guard Cutter Henry Blake, namesake of the lighthouse’s first keeper.
The Henry Blake’s commander, Lt. Jason Haag, volunteered his crew to help hoist the ball up to the top and was expected to drop anchor in Dungeness Bay at about 4 p.m. Monday.
It will be the first time the 17-inch diameter vent ball, which draws humidity out of the light tower, has been replaced since it first sat atop the Admiralty Head lighthouse glassed-in lantern room in 1861.
The 250-pound, cast iron vent ball was relocated from Admiralty Head to New Dungeness Lighthouse in 1927 and has sat atop the tower ever since.
“They are under way” from Everett, Rick DeWitt, lighthouse association board vice president, said of the Henry Blake on Monday.
“There’s just six of us doing all this work, and we’re all old folks too,” he quipped, speaking from the lighthouse. “We’re going to continue to build the scaffolding and be prepared for them when they get here.”
Lifting ball
Once the Coast Guard crew members arrive, they will decide how to lug the new vent ball up to the top of the tower to replace the present ball, which is in danger of falling off in the event of high winds or a powerful earthquake.
The association volunteers set up the scaffolding near the base of the tower to test whether parts were missing before disassembling it and hauling it up the tower’s steep spiral staircase.
If there is no way of lifting the vent ball using a block and tackle, DeWitt said they had another option.
“We have a suitable backpack capable of carrying 250 pounds,” he said.
DeWitt said the association was working with Sequim-based Nikola wireless Internet service to set up a live feed of the work from the light station.
As of noon Monday, they were working on that technology, he said.
The Web cam is on www.newdungenesslighthouse.com, where a link can be found near the bottom of the left navigation bar on the home page.
Those interested in watching the work also can view it with binoculars looking across Dungeness Bay from the beach along 3 Crabs Road.
Drove out Sunday
After the volunteers drove out through the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge on the spit to the lighthouse at low tide Sunday night — spotting a snowy owl at about four miles out — they stayed overnight at the keeper’s house before assembling the scaffolding Monday.
Association president, V. Steve Reed, said Haag, got in touch with the association a few months ago and offered his support for the New Dungeness Light Station.
“During lunch with him a couple of months ago, we discussed this difficult project and he enthusiastically offered help,” Reed said. “With a 250-pound vent ball, his assistance and that of his crew is greatly appreciated.”
A Georgia foundry cast the new vent ball, a job made possible through a $5,000 grant from the Benjamin N. Phillips Memorial Fund, which makes grants to organizations improving the lives of Clallam County residents.
Chad Kaiser, who was hired in April as the association’s third general manager overseeing all that goes on at the light station, researched the national archives to find the specifications needed to replicated the vent ball and located the foundry to cast the iron vent ball.
Kaiser, who came to the New Dungeness Light Station after stints at Point No Point Lighthouse in Hansville on the North Kitsap Peninsula, and with the U.S. Lighthouse Society in San Francisco, was joined by volunteer David Bromley, braving the chill atop the lighthouse Monday, assembling the scaffolding, after they and other volunteers hauled up the pieces to the lamp room.
The lighthouse and station was maintained by Coast Guard keepers until March 1, 1994.
The lighthouse was erected in 1857 and the keeper’s house was built in 1904.
Coast Guard Auxiliary volunteers staffed the station until Sept. 3 of the same year when the New Dungeness Chapter of the U.S. Lighthouse Society assumed responsibility for staffing and maintenance of the station under license from the U.S. Coast Guard.
The Henry Blake was named after the first New Dungeness Lighthouse keeper, Henry Blake of England, who reported for duty at the first lighthouse on the Strait of Juan de Fuca in early 1858.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.