Lightship

A disused lightvessel docked in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Lightship Portsmouth can be seen at downtown Portsmouth, VA, and is a part of the Naval Shipyard Museum.

Lightship Portsmouth (LV-101) shows it's mushroom anchor.

Lightship Finngrundet, now a museum ship in Stockholm. The day markers can be seen on the masts, and the black mushroom anchor in its housing near the waterline at the bow

Calshot Spit lightship, now a fixed attraction at Ocean Village marina, Southampton.

File:Lightship Columbia.JPG

Lightship Columbia, WLV-604

Lightship Fehrmarnbelt, now a museum ship in Lübeck

"Lightship" redirects here. For the measurement of a ship's capacity, see [[:tonnage]].

A lightvessel, or lightship, is a conventional ship which acts as a lighthouse, usually anchored permanently and have no means of propulsion.

Lightvessels are used in waters that are too deep for a lighthouse. Instead of marking coastlines, they usually mark marine traffic routes. They are superior to a buoy for this purpose because its navigational aids are more visible. They also usually carry data recorders used in research oceanography, such as wave recorders, and may also function as weather stations.

The first lightvessel was located off the Nore sandbank at the mouth of the River Thames in England, placed there by its inventor Robert Hamblin in 1732.

Some lightships are mobile, such as relief lightships used as temporary replacements while the normal ship is in port for maintenance, and lightships which operated in Arctic waters during the ice-free summer months only, such as the Lightship Finngrundet[1].

Appearance

Lightships, for visibility purposes, normally had bright red hulls which displayed the name of the station that the ship marked in white upper case letters; relief light vessels displayed the word RELIEF instead. A few ships had different colour hulls; for example, the Huron was painted black since she was assigned the black buoy side of the entrance to the Lake Huron Cut. The lightvessel that operated at Minots Ledge, Cohasset, and Mass from 1854 until 1860 had a light yellow hull to make it visible against the blue-green seas and the green hills behind it.

As well as the light, which operated in the fog and also at night, from one hour before sunset to one hour after sunrise, early lightvessels were equipped with red (or very occasionally white) day markers at the tops of masts, which were the first thing seen from an approaching ship. The designs varied; filled circles or globes, and pairs of inverted cones being the most common.

Mooring

Early lightships used the fluke anchors which are still used on many vessels. These were not very satisfactory, since a lightship has to remain stationary in very rough seas which other vessels can avoid, and these anchors are prone to dragging.

Since the early 19th century, lightships have used mushroom anchors, named from their shape, which typically weigh 3-4 tons. They were invented by Robert Stevenson. The first lightvessel equipped with one was an 82-ton converted fishing boat, renamed Pharos, which entered service on 15 September, 1807 near to Bell Rock and which had a 1.5 ton example. The effectiveness of these anchors improved dramatically in the 1820s, when cast iron anchor chains were introduced (the rule of thumb being 6 feet of chain for every foot depth of water).

British lightvessels

In England and Wales, Trinity House is in charge of all lightvessels. All are now unmanned, but had nine crew in the past. There are 11 lightvessels and 2 smaller lightfloats. The first lightvessel was changed to solar power in 1995, and all except the '20 class' have been converted. The '20 class' represents a slightly larger type of vessel that derives its power from diesel electric generators and has not been converted to solar power due to navigational requirements. Where a main light with a visible range in excess of 20 nautical miles (37 km) is required, a '20 class' vessel is used, as the main light from a Trinity House solar lightvessel has a maximum range of 19 nautical miles (35 km). There are currently hull numbers: 19, 22, 23 and 25 (the 20 class); 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 17 (solar lightvessels); and LF2 and LF3 (solar lightfloats). Solar lightvessels 93 and 95 have recently been decommissioned and scrapped.

American Lightvessels

The first United States lightship was established at Chesapeake Bay in 1820, and the total number around the coast peaked in 1909 with 56 locations marked with these vessels. A total of 116 stations have been marked with lightships, including ones on the Great Lakes. Approximately 174 vessels were constructed to man these stations. Of those ships, 168 were constructed by the U.S. Lighthouse Service and six by the U.S. Coast Guard, which absorbed it in 1939.

The official use of lightships in the United States ended March 29, 1985, when the U.S. Coast Guard decommissioned its last such ship, the Nantucket I. Many lightships were replaced with offshore light platforms called "Texas Towers" (as they were modelled after the small offshore oil drilling platforms first used off the Texas coast[2]) or large navigational buoys - all of which are cheaper to build and operate than lightvessels.

It is estimated that there are 15 left today. Three lightships are in New York Harbor: the Ambrose (No. 87) at the South Street Seaport; the Nantucket (No. 112), moored in Oyster Bay, NY at The Waterfront Center; and the Frying Pan (No. 115), docked at Pier 63 in Chelsea.

A fourth Lightship, Lightship No. 84 (135 feet long, weighing 683 tons), lies sunk in a shallow section of New York Harbor and its two masts are still visible above the surface [3].

The first lightship on the Pacific Coast, the Lightship Columbia, marked the entrance to the Columbia River, near Astoria, Oregon. Another Pacific Coast lightship, Swiftsure, is displayed at South Lake Union Park in Seattle.

Popular culture

• Lightship, a 1934 novel by Archie Binns.
• The Lightship, a novel by Siegfried Lenz.
• The Lightship, a 1986 film adapted from the Lenz novel, with Robert Duvall and Klaus Maria Brandauer.

See also

• List of lighthouses and lightvessels
• Lightvessels in the United Kingdom

External links

• Trinity House lightvessels
• LV605 Relief lightship
• Lightship day markers
• Lightship anchors
• Reference site for Stevenson's Bell Rock lighthouse
• Buffalo Harbor LV82
• Lightship Frying Pan in New York City