Wyborn Reef Light, Maritime lighthouse in Queensland, Australia
Wyborn Reef Light is a navigational lighthouse located off the coast of Queensland, Australia, featuring a skeletal steel tower structure anchored on concrete piles in shallow waters. The tower houses equipment within a white fiberglass compartment and marks a key passage used by shipping traffic in the region.
The lighthouse was constructed in 1938 by the Public Works Department under harsh conditions in shark-infested waters. Its completion represented a major milestone in establishing modern navigation safety along this section of the Australian coast.
The light's name comes from Wyborn Reef, long charted as Y Reef; the 1937 approval caused confusion with Wye Reef, 120 km south, where a light already stood. Its four flashes every twenty seconds, white with a red sector between 133° and 143°, have been recorded since the 1957 Admiralty List of Lights.
The site and tower are closed to the public and operated by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority; the island can be reached only by boat. The light marks the entrance to Albany Passage, about 16 km southeast of Albany Island, east of the tip of Cape York Peninsula. Pilings from an earlier lighthouse stand beside the present tower.
The structure contains a white fiberglass machinery hut within its framework and uses a Chance Brothers 375 mm catadioptric Fresnel lens for navigation signals.
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