Technicians give Hanois Lighthouse 'MoT'

Lighthouse keepers in the British Isles may be a thing of the past but teams of technicians are still needed to give the structures what they call an MoT.

A team of three technicians from charity Trinity House have recently spent eight days working on the Hanois Lighthouse, off Guernsey's west coast.

They gave Hanois a full inspection and technician Scott Tacchi said he and his team visited each lighthouse twice a year.

The lighthouse was built by Trinity House in 1862 and marks the reefs off Guernsey.

Mr Tacchi was a mechanic at a garage in Cornwall before being inspired to apply to work on lighthouses by a friend.

• Listen to Scott Tacchi talking about his job as a lighthouse technician

He described Hanois as "cosy".

"We kind of do a full inspection of all the systems within the lighthouse, kind of like an MoT," he said.

Following the inspection, the team will return in six months time to complete the work.

The technician said a lot of preparation goes into visiting the lighthouses.

"Forgetting a piece of equipment would be quite expensive with the helicopter having to come back out to us," he said.

Each technician has individual skills but Mr Tacchi said he had to be a "jack of all trades".

"If the boiler goes down you have to turn into a plumber, there's carpentry to do, building work to do," he said.

"Also changing the safety nets around the helipads, we have to do those every three years."

While other members of his team spend their downtime watching movies or listening to music, Mr Tacchi prefers fishing and documenting his work on his social media channel.

Mr Tacchi said Hanois was one of the "more favourable" lighthouses he had visited and was probably in his top three.

He said it was in a "lovely location", the stairs were "not as steep as other lighthouses" and the bunks were "straight rather than curved with the wall".

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