Sabik Marine M650H Lanterns Showing the Way on the Canals of Venice
Venice, Italy, is one of the best known cities in the world and unique with its’ special characteristics. This “living museum” is built on an archipelago of 117 islands formed by 177 canals in a shallow lagoon, connected by 409 bridges. Venice, now in the 21st century, is Europe’s largest urban car-free area. Waterways are used for transport as canals serve the function of roads. Waterbuses, gondolas, traghettis and water taxis are on the move from early morning to late at night to transport goods and people around the city
Sabik Marine has delivered lanterns to Venice lagoons previously for other installations but this latest project in Venice started in the spring of 2016. The company Venezia Tronchetto Real Estate srl contacted Sabik Marine Italian Distributor, Heliant srl, with a requirement to mark a canal for an important new boathouse. This large boathouse, named “New ACTV Boathouse” is used for the city public transport company ACTV (Azienda del Consorzio Trasporti Veneziano) fleet so the volume of traffic in the canal is very intense. The channel is long and wide so the challenge was to clearly mark the routes for the vessels to ensure smooth traffic flow and to avoid potential collisions. The position of the lanterns were indicated at the beginning ofthe project at a distance of 50 meters from each other. The importance of the chosen colours was fundamental as the same channel was used simultaneously for arrival and departure of the vessels. Yellow lanterns were chosen to mark the external channel route around the boathouse area. Red lanterns were chosen to indicate two access points to the inside of the boathouse parking area. The lantern model selected to fulfil the requirements for this specific project was the self-contained M650H lantern. The lantern had to ensure at least 1 NM of visibility as a steady light due to frequent fog and humidity around Venice waters during the winter.
Deficiency of sunlight requires substantial battery autonomy as self-contained solar panels are not able to collect enough energy in the northern part of Mediterranean Sea during the winter on cloudy or foggy days. In summer these environmentally-friendly lanterns collect and store their energy from the sun.The M650H lanterns were installed during August 2016; some being installed on the top of the tall wooden poles which are a characteristic of the Venice lagoon. Now that the M650H lanterns have been up and running for over half a year, Mr RobertoTrevisiol from VeneziaTronchetto Real Estate srl summarizes the project “I am very satisfied how the project was conducted. We got the installation done easily in a very short time.” Mr Marco Vavalà from Sabik Marine distributor Heliant srl is highly committed to delivering the best quality solutions to end-customers: “This was an interesting high-tempo project in a historically remarkable environment, the floating city of Venice. It took only a couple of months from the proposal to the installation phase and now the M650H lanterns have lightened up this winter and will continue many years to come.” www.sabik-marine.com www.heliant.it
