The Spiaggia degli Olivi lighthouse, a historic monument on Lake Garda and the symbol of the town of Riva, was turned off about forty years ago.
The diving board tower, on top of which the historic lake lighthouse was installed, is found at the end of the pier. Thanks to restoration work in the area, commissioned by Lido di Riva, the lighthouse started sweeping the Trento waters of the lake once again with its beam in October 2012. The surprise is that, instead of the complicated original twenty-four volt mechanism, there is a brand new Clay Paky Sharpy inside the lantern room, which is not only able to reproduce the brightness of the old lighthouse, but also its perfect movement!
Giacomo Galassi of Iiriti Noleggi explained that “owing to the originality of the installation, Clay Paky was extremely helpful and let us try the light out for over a month so that we could test it in actual use. We also programmed it, after it was installed by Albano Miori’s AGS. In the end the customer was very satisfied with the new light, owing to its luminous efficiency, low energy consumption and ease of maintenance thanks to the lamp (only 189 W)”.
The Sharpy was programmed to reproduce the same timing and exact coverage of the original lighthouse, and obviously uses a full white beam. Incredibly, however, it was necessary to dim the light to lower the power since the full beam disturbed people over twenty-five kilometres away! A special resolution was passed by the Provincial Government to limit the light cone so that it only covers the lake between Punta Lido and the former Grotta Azzurra, in order not to dazzle residential buildings and vehicles on their way to Riva on the Lake Garda trunk road.
So, thanks to Clay Paky, Riva del Garda has regained a piece of its past and history, not to mention a tourist attraction, through this flexible and powerful innovation.