The USCG’s Hyper-radiant Fresnel
Makapu’u Lighthouse stands majestically atop the southeastern most point of Oahu, Hawaii. U.S. Coast Guard photo
From the Makapu’u Light on Oahu’s southeastern most point, the world’s largest lighthouse lens reflects a beam that can be seen from 19 nautical miles away.
The 12-foot-tall and 8-foot-wide Hyper-radiant Fresnel lens takes up more than a quarter of the space inside the 46-foot-tall lighthouse.
With more than a thousand prisms, the lens is almost five feet taller than the First Order Fresnel lens in America’s tallest lighthouse, the 207-foot-tall Cape Hatteras Light in the North Carolina Outer Banks. It is wide enough for several people to stand inside.
“It is, by far, the largest lens that I have ever seen,” said Chief Petty Officer Ernest W. Rucker, who leads the Honolulu-based U.S. Coast Guard Aids to Navigation Team (ANT) that maintains the lens.
The Hyper-radiant lens was unveiled at the 1893 Chicago World Fair. Once it reached Hawaii, pieces of the giant lens were hoisted from a moving ship up the steep lava slope and reassembled in the lighthouse.
Displaying its impressive height, a man stands next to the Makapu’u fresnel light in this undated photo. U.S. Coast Guard photo.
Lit in 1909, the Makapu’u Lighthouse shines across the Kaiwi Channel between the islands of Oahu and Molokai.