Nautical, Lighthouse

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

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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 placed 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.

Appearance

Lightships, for visibility purposes, normally had bright red hulls which displayed the name of the station 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).

Read more at Wikipedia.org