The saga of these sentinels of the sea illustrated with slides made from century-old glass negatives was the subject of author and historian Fred Thompson's Portland Harbor Museum April maritime history lecture.

Fred Thompson, author and historian

Life aboard a 19th century wooden lightships was a job for iron sailors. For the first fifty years, Thompson noted, they tolled their warning bells and kept flickering whale oil signal lamps alight while battling stormy seas to keep on station. At the dawn of the new century steel ships, electric lights and horns eased the technical challenge, but sea never relented. Finally, the electronic technology drove the proud lightships from the seas. One by one they were retired until Nantucket Lightship, last of the breed, was replaced by a sophisticated electronic buoy.

Thompson traced their development from the first lightship deployed in Britain's River Thames in 1721, a recycled fishing boat lighted by two buckets of flaming tar. Later lightships were bluff bowed and equipped with heavy mushroom anchors to keep them in place in the roughest weather. Many U.S. Lighthouse Service ships were Maine built. Distinctive colorful early lightship patterns blended into the familiar bright red mandated by the Coast Guard when it took over the service in 1938.

Twenty five New England lightships were allocated to the shoals of Cape Cod's "Mariners Graveyard." Testifying to the incredible volume of maritime traffic in this dangerous stretch of water, one Cape Cod lightship tallied 500 passing ships within a twenty four hour period.

Portland Harbor's first lightship arrived on station in 1903. Like all of the Lighthouse Service ships its name, "Cape Elizabeth," was displayed in bold letters stretching along its sides from stem to stern. Eight years later the station was renamed "Portland." In 1975, "Portland" followed its sister lightships into retirement--replaced by an electronic navigation buoy.

Over the years the Portland lightship, suffered its quota of adventures and near disasters. A close escape from sinking after being rammed was averted by stuffing the hole with bags of coal. Other Lighthouse Service vessels were less lucky. Nantucket Lightship,stationed 50 miles south of the island was positioned to fix an aiming point for ships heading for New York Harbor.

"Looming out of the fog, it was for many new immigrants the first glimpse of their new country," said Thompson. "Its radio beacon made it an easy target for liner's radio direction finder receivers."

Thompson showed a slide of the passing Cunard Liner, Olympic, taken by a Nantucket crew member. On a subsequent voyage the fog-bound Olympic, homing in on the Nantucket's RDF beacon, sliced neatly through its hull and sent it to the bottom within five minutes. To make amends, the British government replaced it with a sturdier and more sophisticated replacement.

Lightships were pioneers in RDF and other early marine radio transmission. In 1901 Nantucket was the first ship to successfully send a ship to shore radio message. The world's first pre-SOS distress call was sent by a U.S. Lighthouse relief lightship. After being rammed by a homing vessel, Relief 58 signalled "Help--come immediately."

During World War II, to avoid furnishing free navigation aid to the enemy, lightships numbers were removed and they lost their distinctive red color. In at least one case related by Thompson, the enemy offered a little free advice to a lightship skipper.

"In the war's early days," Thompson said, "a German U-boat surfaced, announced that the lightship had drifted off its station, and quickly submerged. Good information! The lightship skipper checked his bearings, hoisted anchor and maneuvered back on station."

A few retired lightships have become maritime museums. One of them, the last "Nantucket" survives in Boston Harbor as a floating lawyers office. Other New England lightships live on thanks to late nineteenth century Newport yachtsmen's yen to capture their regatta victories on film. Sailing in and out to the races their hired photographers often amused themselves by recording glass negatives of nearby lightships. Those fine delineations of century-old proud ships is all that remains of a heroic epoch of American maritime history. back to PHM Beacon back to PHM home page