All Hands on Deck

Sailing into the Future with Wireless Lighting

By Randy Reid

Imagine you are tasked with creating an interactive experience to showcase the history of sailing and educate those who don’t know a thing about it. What are you focused on? The story telling? Sure. The ambiance and flow? No brainer. What about the lighting?

Heather Ruhsam, executive director of The Sailing Museum, was tasked with just that and jumped on board to bring the Museum to fruition. With extensive knowledge of the sailing world, she knew the lighting would bring all the exhibits to life. Heather explained, “With all of the different exhibits, and how dense our museum plan was, the lighting was going to be really important to how we displayed everything.”

With such a compelling story, the Museum embarked on an expedition to educate and demystify the general population about the history and heart of sailing. David Elwell, chairman of The Sailing Museum building committee and two-time competitor in the prestigious America’s Cup, looked to the sailing community to find building industry experts he could pull into the project. He tapped John Tremaine, founder of Q-Tran and participant in two America’s Cup campaigns, for help with lighting, and Jerry Kirby, 6-time America’s Cup participant, to be the general contractor on the project. The result was a remarkable group of sailors for whom the museum became a passion project.

The Museum was meticulous about selecting the right partners to renovate and build out the old Armory Building in Newport, Rhode Island, where it is located. As a historical site, they needed industry experts on all fronts to ensure the integrity of the building was kept intact. Built in the late 1800s for the local militia, it was previously used as the press headquarters for the America’s Cup. Later, it served as an antique market before being purchased to house the museum.

The rich history of the building adds to the charm and experience, but presents a challenge when modernizing in a minimally invasive way. Kirby Perkins Construction, which specializes in historic renovations, was selected to ensure that the building’s integrity was respected. Next up was finding the right partner for exhibit design. Healy Kohler, an industry leader in museum design at RLMG (Richard Lewis Media Group), was tasked with creating an engaging interactive experience, along with Hadley Exhibits for exhibit fabrication and installation. The final, and perhaps most important, partnership was locating an industry leader to deliver avant-garde luminaires for such a unique installation. Q-Tran, a leading lighting manufacturer/innovator, was chosen for this crucial job.

After touring the armory, the design team immediately recognized the opportunity to create a stunning story, although they quickly understood the challenges that came with executing that vision.

John Tremaine of Q-Tran realized that conventional track lighting could not be considered because the 30-foot ceilings and the 16-foot spans required a custom design. They needed to layer the design to ensure there was enough lighting for events as well as a secondary level to light the exhibits. Tremaine considered customizing their VERS Linear LED with asymmetric lens for the up-lighting, provided they could be mounted to the beautiful black ceiling trusses. However, due to the historical nature of the armory, they did not want to alter the trusses. Furthermore, a new slate roof had been recently installed, adding stress to the steel trusses, and welding or drilling would have weakened them. As a solution, Q-Tran created a U-track with four independent low-voltage circuits that clamped onto the trusses, eliminating any need to drill or weld. As an added benefit, if the museum later changes the configuration of the room, they can easily loosen the bolts and reposition the U-tracks as needed.

Because of the length of the 16-foot spans, Q-Tran realized there would be a small deflection, or sag, when mounted. John Tremaine knew that carbon fiber solved a lot of problems in the sailing world, so Q-Tran designed a custom pultruded carbon fiber structural beam that would fit inside the U-track and mitigate any sag. This allowed the 16’ U-tracks to be supported at each end, with no intermediate cable support.

They then had to grapple with up-lighting the ceiling to capture the beauty of the architecture while simultaneously illuminating sailboats hung from the ceiling and the exhibits at ground level. Hunter Tremaine, Q-Tran’s project manager for the museum, explained, “We used 2700K throughout the building for accent lighting, but we intentionally used 3000K for the indirect lights because they were illuminating a warmer wood surface. Due to the wood’s tone, if we would have used 2700K for indirect, the reflective light would have come back at around 2400K, making the indirect look too warm. The final result was a very nice blend.” Hunter pointed out that they conducted a few prototypes to prove the concept. He was very complimentary regarding Abernathy Lighting Design, especially with their work aiming and focusing each luminaire.

Additionally, Q-Tran designed, engineered and manufactured a new point source luminaire called LUCY (officially launching in 2023). It is one-third smaller than competitive point source products yet packs the same lumen output. This 12-watt luminaire uses the Cree 3535 chip and has a variety of optics: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60-degree beam spreads. This range allowed Abernathy to select tight beam angles, from 10-30 degrees, for floor displays, and wider 40-60 degree beams for illuminating hanging boats and sails throughout the space.

As the design was taking place, Kohler asked for the ability to individually control every light within the museum. This is where Casambi added their expertise. Casambi is known for their customizable low-energy wireless Bluetooth network, with easy to use, minimally invasive technology and the ability to individually control every light. Q-Tran had to redesign the drivers to incorporate the Casambi technology; weight was not an issue, as the Casambi radio is minimally invasive and small enough to be embedded into every driver. After redesign, the drivers had to be tested and UL listed. Casambi joined Abernathy Lighting Design on set for the commissioning. They created easy to manage pre-set scenes, as the Museum is staffed only by a small team that handles all daily operations. The lighting needed to be quick and easy to manage, and Casambi offered the ability to change the hierarchy of the lighting “on the fly,” without needing professional programmers. Heather explained, “I think one of the benefits of Casambi’s app is that it allows different scenes. Some of them are scheduled, so if we have an event coming up, it is as simple as just using the “event” button. But if it’s just a regular business day, the app is set to transition from daylight hours to nighttime to a cleaning schedule. All of those are timed so that nobody has to do anything. It just happens.”

This collaboration of sailing and lighting pioneers created a space that is captivating, transporting the visitors through time. The lighting creates intimate moments, as was experienced by the family of Bus Mosbacher, two-time America’s Cup winning skipper and David Elwell’s crewmate on the historic 1967 Intrepid win. Heather described a moment when the display honoring Mosbacher was unveiled to his kin. Having never seen all of his artifacts together and displayed so beautifully, the family was brought to tears.

In the end, the Museum had over 500 customizable light sources throughout the exhibit which were artfully commissioned thanks to Abernathy, Casambi, and Q-Tran. The Museum staff can manage color/dimming functionality throughout the different zones and customize schedules for day-to-day operations, events and holidays – all in the touch of a button.

It took all hands on deck to make this museum sail. ■

Fixture Schedule

Q-Tran:

Pendant cable mounted linear direct / indirect fixture (‘boom’ - Type C1) with integral side and bottom tracks for adjustable ‘LUCY’ (Type N1/N2) accent lighting. Indirect linear: 5.0w/ft. Direct linear: 3.0w/ft.

Wall mounted 10 foot linear direct / indirect fixture (Type L1) 3000K CCT (Selux Lighting).

Truss (clamp) mounted linear fixture (Type U1) spanning up to 16 feet with integral side and bottom tracks for adjustable ‘LUCY’ accent lighting.

Linear indirect lighting (Type V1/V2 – vers-05) installed in Type U1 truss mounted fixture. 3000K. Uniform illumination of main hall wood ceiling.

Qom universal power supply 24VDC output with four (4) 96W drivers in enclosure. Pre-wired for ‘plug and play’ connections to Type U1 fixture.

Track mounted adjustable accent fixture with field-changeable optics. 2700K CCT. Used on Type U1 truss mount, ceiling mount flat track (Type T1/T2) and in display cases.

Static white, static color (blue) and RGBW linear LED in lensed extrusions – used throughout museum in features and displays.

Justice Design:

Decorative pendant mounted fixture with diffuse and direct/indirect lighting distribution.

Restoration Hardware:

Surface ceiling mounted 17" diameter fixture.

Rejuvenation Lighting:

Decorative wall mounted fixture with cast guard and clear glass globe.

Spectrum Lighting:

Recessed ceiling downlight fixture with 4 inch aperture.