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Beavertail Lighthouse

Buildings and structures in Jamestown, Rhode IslandLighthouse museums in Rhode IslandLighthouses completed in 1749Lighthouses completed in 1856Lighthouses in Newport County, Rhode Island
Lighthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Rhode IslandMuseums established in 1993Museums in Newport County, Rhode IslandNational Register of Historic Places in Newport County, Rhode Island
Beavertail Light, Jamestown, Rhode Island
Beavertail Light, Jamestown, Rhode Island

Beavertail Lighthouse was built in 1856 and is the premier lighthouse in Rhode Island, marking the entrance to Narragansett Bay. The 64-foot (20 m) lighthouse lies on the southernmost point of Conanicut Island in the town of Jamestown, Rhode Island in Beavertail State Park, on a site where beacons have stood since the early 18th century. The light provides navigation for boats and ships entering Narragansett Bay in the East Passage between Conanicut Island and Newport, Rhode Island on Aquidneck Island. Other lighthouses are visible from Beavertail Lighthouse, such as Castle Hill Lighthouse, Point Judith Light, and Rose Island Light.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Beavertail Lighthouse (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Beavertail Lighthouse
Beavertail Road,

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Wikipedia: Beavertail LighthouseContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 41.446 ° E -71.3993 °
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Address

1755 Lighthouse Foundation

Beavertail Road

Rhode Island, United States
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Beavertail Light, Jamestown, Rhode Island
Beavertail Light, Jamestown, Rhode Island
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1989 Narragansett Bay oil spill

On June 23, 1989, several hundred thousand gallons of fuel oil were spilled at the mouth of the Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island after the tanker MV World Prodigy ran aground on a reef near Aquidneck Island. World Prodigy, a 532 feet (162 m) long ship operated by Ballard Shipping under the Greek flag, was inbound to Providence and Tiverton, Rhode Island when at about 16:40 local time she ran aground on Brenton Reef, about 1 mile (1.6 km) offshore from Brenton Point State Park, after passing the wrong side of a buoy marking the channel. She had a cargo of about 8.1 million gallons of fuel oil. The grounding damaged four of the ship's eight cargo compartments; early reports indicated that as much as a million gallons of oil had spilled, but later estimates put the total at about 300,000 gallons. Oil covered about 50 square miles and washed up on shore, but due to its low viscosity and choppy seas that broke up the slick it evaporated fairly quickly. The Coast Guard estimated that the cleanup cost about $2 million.The collision damaged the hull of World Prodigy in two places, but she was floated off the reef in early July and repaired at a shipyard in New York City.After the collision, World Prodigy's captain, Iakovos Georgudis, was charged with two violations of the Clean Water Act and Ballard Shipping with one. Both the captain and company pleaded guilty; Ballard paid $1 million and Georgudis $10,000 in fines. In December 1990, the National Transportation Safety Board released the results of their investigation of the spill, finding that Captain Georgudis had been suffering from sleep deprivation and was distracted by working on paperwork at the time of the collision. World Prodigy, having arrived at the mouth of the bay earlier than planned, had not taken on a harbor pilot, and shortly before she ran aground, Captain Georgudis had sent both his first officer and watchman away from the bridge to work on other tasks, which the NTSB judged left the ship "without a qualified deck watch officer for several minutes prior to the grounding."