Point Judith Rhode Island Real Estate

Point Judith Pond has long been one of New England's important fishing ports. More recently, because of its accessibility and proximity to popular fishing grounds, the pond has been discovered as a popular harbor for cruising, sailing and sportfishing.

Its location nine miles from Newport to the northeast and nine miles from Block Island to the southwest makes it a convenient location for permanent or transient dockage. On the east bank of Point Judith Pond is Galilee, home to many commercial fishing vessels, charter and party boats, fish buyers and processors, along with the Block Island ferry boats, several restaurants and shops.

The passage past Point Judith was a dangerous one, with a treacherous ledge to the west and frequent fog in the area. A day beacon at Point Judith dated back to before the American Revolution.

The origin of Point Judith's name is disputed. Some say it was after the wife or mother-in-law of merchant John Hull, others say it was named for the Tribe of Judah in the Bible. The most colorful explanation concerns a Nantucket sea captain, lost in the fog off the point. The captain's daughter shouted that she spotted land. The captain, unable to discern anything in the fog, exhorted his daughter to "P'int, Judy, p'int!"

The first lighthouse was built at Point Judith in 1810 for $5,000. This octagonal wooden tower, the third lighthouse in Rhode Island, was destroyed in a severe hurricane in September 1815. A 35-foot stone lighthouse was erected the following year.

The new tower had a revolving light. In 1838 it was reported that the mechanism, powered by a weight of more than 200 pounds, took 144 seconds to complete a revolution. This was six seconds slower than intended. The revolving light was necessary to differentiate Point Judith from Beavertail Light.

The station was cold and damp, and the bedroom was located in the attic of the keeper's house. The keeper and his family are said to have slept in the kitchen to keep warm in the winter. In 1838 an inspector reported that the ten lamps and reflectors were in poor condition and that ice on the lantern glass was a common problem.

Despite the lighthouse, frequent wrecks continued in the vicinity. In 1855 alone, 16 vessels were wrecked or stranded near Point Judith.

In 1857 a new 51-foot brownstone tower and brick dwelling, connected to the tower by an enclosed walkway, were built. The lighthouse, which still stands, is an octagonal structure. It was fitted with a fourth-order Fresnel lens from Paris; this lens remains in place today. The upper half of the tower was later painted brown and the lower half white.

A Daboll trumpet fog signal powered by a hot-air engine was installed in 1867. Complaints that the fog signal blended with the sound of the surf led to a change to a fog whistle in 1872. An assistant keeper was hired to help maintain the new equipment. In 1875 the fog signal was in operation for 777 hours, or almost 10% of the time. A new fog signal building was added in 1923.

In 1931 a radio beacon was established at Point Judith, the first at a Rhode Island lighthouse. The radio beacon towers were removed in 1974.

Shipping traffic past Point Judith remained heavy in the 20th century. In 1907, 22,860 vessels were counted passing the lighthouse in daylight hours. The traffic was four times greater than the traffic entering New York Harbor.

U.S. Coast Guard photo

The Coast Guard built larger quarters and support buildings in 1937. Point Judith Light escaped the great Hurricane of '38 relatively unscathed, although 250 feet of the seawall was destroyed.

The 1857 brick keeper's house was torn down in 1954, the same year the light was automated. An 1874 assistant keeper's house has also been destroyed. The 1917 oil house and a 1923 fog signal building still stand.

In the summer of 2000 Point Judith Light underwent a major restoration. Coast Guard architect Marsha Levy did the design work and oversaw the restoration by Campbell Construction of Beverly, Massachusetts. The lens was removed to the Coast Guard Aids to Navigation Team in Bristol, Rhode Island, and the lantern went to Campbell Construction for refurbishing. Some of the lantern's panels were replaced, and a repainting left it in pristine condition.

Moby Dick1

U-Boat hunting on the North Atlantic was a dangerous business. From the first attack by U-30 in the opening days of the war and throughout the ensuing six years, the adversaries had learned to be especially wary of one another and that the dynamics of the relationship between hunter and hunted were fluid. Even a small technological or tactical advantage paid enormous dividends. So they put their minds to the mission of finding the means of gaining that advantage and in their quest, they turned to science. There, each side found momentary solace until that advantage was nullified and the cycle began anew.

It was in the realm of communications where the greatest inventiveness emerged from the laboratories and for some time Germany and the Allies kept pace; but it was the Allies who eventually took the lead. By their efforts they rendered the seas virtually transparent and discovered U-Boats in ever-increasing numbers. The fruits of their labor were astonishing: LORAN, an early Global Positioning System and MAD, which detected U-Boats by their magnetic signatures; HF/DF, pronounced huff-duff a mechanism for tracking U-Boats through their radio transmissions and ASV, the 10-cm microwave radar small enough to be carried aboard allied ASW aircraft.

And once the scientists delivered their inventions, then came the planners who devised the training, tactics, and organization that implemented these advances and packaged them in new tactical formations: the Anti-Submarine aircraft of the U.S. Navy and the RAF Coastal Command, and, at sea, the hunter-killer group, with the revolutionary escort aircraft carrier at its heart.

Equally as important, the Allies established a command structure that coordinated all ASW activities. The British took the early lead when an Enigma machine, the cryptographic device by which the Germans encoded and decoded messages, was retrieved from the U-110 after it had attacked a convoy and had been attacked in turn by the convoy escorts. At Bletchley Park, outside London, a Submarine Tracking Room was established using the decrypted German Naval codes and other signal intelligence.

In the United States, various combinations and formations were tried and rejected. Finally, on 20 May 1943, there came into being the Tenth Fleet. To emphasize the importance placed on the effort, the fleet commander was none other than the Chief of Naval Operations himself, Admiral Ernest J. King, who exercised his command through the fleet chief-of-staff. An organization integrating U-Boat data similar to its British counterpart was established in Washington. First designated OP-20-G, it was later known as F-21. And within that was a further compartment, F-211, where ULTRA cryptologic intelligence was processed before being posted on the F-21 charts.

The U-Boats, though still dangerous, were losing the battle.

So it was in June 1944. As the Allies consolidated their beachhead on the Normandy coast and Marines assaulted Fortress Saipan in the Pacific, Captain John Vest stood on the bridge of the escort carrier Croatan (CVE-25). From there, he maneuvered his hunter-killer group in a sweep across the mid-Atlantic continuing to track an unknown contact he had picked up nearly three days earlier. It was the U-853, one of several boats sent in mid-May on a highly important mission. Unable to establish weather stations in Greenland and Iceland, the Germans sent U-Boats to the mid-Atlantic to gather weather data. They knew that the Allies would attempt to breach Festung Europa soon and it was merely a matter of choosing the right campaigning weather.

Croatan and its escorts, the six destroyer escorts of Escort Division 13, had been tracking these weather boats for a nearly a month and had already accounted for the U-488 and U-490. But this new contact was more elusive. Earlier accounts attributed this elusiveness to the schnorchel, which was a breathing apparatus that allowed the boat to remain submerged far longer than older boats that needed to surface often to recharge their batteries. But it never fulfilled its initial promise. Although this U-Boat possessed the schnorchel, it was not a contributing factor in its escape. The chase continued day after day and the hunters had taken to calling their adversary "Moby Dick." The Battle of Point Judith, Ralph DiCarpio

Offshore Cruising

As the story goes, sometime near the end of the 19th century Nova Scotia fisherman Tom Mann set up a camp to the west of Point Judith, Rhode Island. So taken was he by the beauty of the place and the bounty of its waters, Mann christened his bivouac Galilee after the town where the disciples angled. Later, when another fisherman asked what the name of the land across the breachway to Point Judith Pond was, Mann replied that if this was Galilee, that must be Jerusalem. The names stuck, and it's been that way ever since.

The towns of Galilee and Jerusalem mark the entrance to Point Judith Pond, and together with nearby Snug Harbor and Narragansett, offer the visiting mariner a welcome respite from busy ports like Newport and Block Island. Here you'll find peace, tranquility, and plenty of reasons to just kick back, not least of which are some of the prettiest sunsets anywhere.

HOW TO GET THERE

Behind the breakwater at Point Judith is an area known as the Harbor of Refuge, an artificial basin bound by a V-shape jetty with openings to the east and west and land to the northeast. Average depth is about 20 feet, but there are shoals close to the wall. Check the latest charts, as many buoys heading into the Pond have been renumbered. If you're in doubt, call the harbormaster (401-423-4613), Point Judith Coast Guard (401-789-3021), or the harbor police (401-783-3321). All monitor VHF Channel 16. You'll need the following NOAA charts: 12305, 13215, 13217, and 13219.

DOCKING FACILITIES

Point Judith Pond offers the adventurous boater plenty of opportunities amongst its islands and along its shoreline for safe anchoring, especially south of Gardner and Beach Islands and in Smelt Brook Cove. Follow your chart carefully, and remember to leave sufficient swing room. However, if a dock space is more to your liking, there are plenty of marinas nearby. Here are a few. And remember all the waters of Rhode Island are no-discharge zones.

. Ram Point (401-783-4535) has a laundry, bathrooms, emergency hauling, and free pumpout service.

. Silver Spring (401-783-0783) has a fiberglass repair shop, ship's store, and a clubhouse.

. Located in the upper reaches of the Pond, Billington Cove (401-783-1266) and Long Cove (401-783-4902) offer quiet and solitude.

. Point View Marina (401-789-7660) is one nautical mile from the Harbor of Refuge and offers haul-out services and both fiberglass and mechanical repairs.