The Scharhörnbake was the most important
daymark
A daymark is a navigational aid for sailors and maritime pilot, pilots, distinctively marked to maximize its visibility in daylight.
The word is also used in a more specific, technical sense to refer to a signboard or daytime identifier that ...
on the German
North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...
coast for several centuries. First erected in 1661 by the City of
Hamburg
Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...
on the sandbank
Scharhörn and south side of the
Elbe
The Elbe ( ; ; or ''Elv''; Upper Sorbian, Upper and , ) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Republic), then Ge ...
estuary, it was rebuilt over centuries and taken down in 1979 after 318 years. Equipped with a room, it also functioned as a
refuge beacon for
shipwreck
A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. It results from the event of ''shipwrecking'', which may be intentional or unintentional. There were approximately thre ...
survivors from 1840 to 1965.
[Manfred Temme: ''Vogelfreistätte Scharhörn'', Verein Jordsand, 1967] The only remaining element today is the boulder stone foundation near
Nigehörn.
With a height of 29.10 meters (95'6"), it was the highest daymark from 1898 until 23 December 1914 on the North Sea coast.
Often destroyed by storms, it was also taken down in wartime to make
navigation
Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the motion, movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navig ...
harder for enemy ships.
Function
The main function of the daymark was to
aid navigation for ships around the feared ''Scharhörn Reef ''into the Elbe coming from the North Sea. Many ships wrecked at this dangerous passage. As Hamburg depended most on this, it maintained
sea marks around the reefs and the routes via the Südergatt und Nordergatt starting 1440. Coming from the sea the first and most important on
starboard
Port and starboard are Glossary of nautical terms (M-Z), nautical terms for watercraft and spacecraft, referring respectively to the left and right sides of the vessel, when aboard and facing the Bow (watercraft), bow (front).
Vessels with bil ...
was the ''Rothe Ton''. The bearing to the
Great Tower Neuwerk via the Scharhörnbake was essential to spot is beacon (see red line).
Further bearings using the Great Tower Neuwerk were:
* the ''Nordbake'' to obscure the
Blüse Neuwerk and later the (small) Lighthouse Neuwerk to spot the ''Scharton'' (before the Vogelsand, blue line)
* the ''Werkbalger Bake'' to spot the ''Butterton'' (after the Vogelsand, green Linie).
Considering the cost and effort to build and maintain the Scharhörnbake as the highest daymark and the Great Tower Neuwerk as the oldest "sea tower" underlines the importance of the Elbe estuary to the city and state of Hamburg.
The room for refugees was added around 1840. The emergency provisions were routinely refreshed. As the sandbank Scharhörn grew into an island by plantations, this function was made obsolete by the first shacks starting 1929.
Appearance
Form and position varied with each reconstruction. At first, it was a wooden structure combining a pyramid and a square. It was not until the mid 19th century that it appeared in its striking form consisting of two diamonds above each other.
See also
*
List of lighthouses and lightvessels in Germany
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Scharhornbake
Buildings and structures completed in 1661
Water transport infrastructure