The Pilot Tower, popularly referred to also as the “white lighthouse”, is one of the first structures that opens to a traveller who arrives to the port of Ventspils by sea.
The first pilot tower in Ventspils was built in 1897 to provide the port pilots with their own place to stay. Until then, the pilots had been based in the Ventspils Castle tower. However, during the First World War, in 1915, the tower was destroyed and a new temporary tower was built in its place in 1920.
In 1934, a decision was taken to build a new tower closer to the seashore, to increase the area of the observed horizon. The Pilot Tower is located in the territory of the Freeport of Ventspils at the South Pier between the Fishing Port and the Venta River. The tower was built in a place where the sea had been shortly before, therefore concrete-filled cement wells were used for its foundation. There were premises in the tower for pilots and the lighthouse guard, and on the top platform there was a workshop for pilots illuminated by portholes removed from the “Pērkons” icebreaker. The tower was equipped with a foghorn motor, a powerful rotating light-beam emitter, a telescope and other equipment.
The polygonal 20.4 metres high tower is built of bricks and its upper round part of concrete structure.
It is located at 22.5 m above sea level and is a uniquely preserved structure on the Kurzeme coast of the Baltic Sea. The Pilot Tower stopped performing its initial functions in the middle of the 20th century, later it was used by the hydrometeorological service. Currently, the tower is not used and is not open to visitors.