A lightvessel, or lightship, is a ship that acts as a lighthouse. They are used in waters that are too deep or otherwise unsuitable for lighthouse construction. Although some records exist of fire beacons being placed on ships in Roman times, the first modern lightvessel was off the Nore sandbank at the mouth of the River Thames in London, England, placed there by its inventor Robert Hamblin in 1734. The type has become largely obsolete; lighthouses replaced some stations as the construction techniques for lighthouses advanced, while large, automated buoys replaced others.
Lower New York Bay is a section of New York Bay south of the Narrows. The eastern end of the Bay is marked by two spits of land, Sandy Hook, New Jersey, and Rockaway, Queens. The waterway between the spits connects the Bay to the Atlantic Ocean at the New York Bight. Traversing the floor of the Bay southeasterly from the Narrows to the Bight and beyond is Hudson Canyon.
The Nore is a long bank of sand and silt running along the south-centre of the final narrowing of the Thames Estuary, England. Its south-west is the very narrow Nore Sand. Just short of the Nore's easternmost point where it fades into the channels it has a notable point once marked by a lightship on the line where the estuary of the Thames nominally becomes the North Sea. A lit buoy today stands on this often map-marked divisor: between Havengore Creek in east Essex and Warden Point on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent.
Barnegat Lighthouse or Barnegat Light, is a historic lighthouse located in Barnegat Lighthouse State Park on the northern tip of Long Beach Island, in the borough of Barnegat Light, Ocean County, New Jersey, United States, on the south side of Barnegat Inlet.
The station named Nantucket or Nantucket Shoals was served by a number of lightvessels that marked the hazardous Nantucket Shoals south of Nantucket Island. The vessels, given numbers as their "name," had the station name painted on their hulls when assigned to the station. Several ships have been assigned to the Nantucket Shoals lightship station and have been called Nantucket. It was common for a lightship to be reassigned and then have the new station name painted on the hull. The Nantucket station was a significant US lightship station for transatlantic voyages. Established in 1854, the station marked the limits of the dangerous Nantucket Shoals. She was the last lightship seen by vessels departing the United States, as well as the first beacon seen on approach. The position was 40 miles (64 km) southeast of Nantucket Island, the farthest lightship in North America, and experienced clockwise rotary tidal currents.
The United States lightship Huron (LV-103) is a lightvessel that was launched in 1920. She is now a museum ship moored in Pine Grove Park, Port Huron, St. Clair County, Michigan.
Carysfort Reef Light is located east of Key Largo, Florida. The lighthouse has an iron-pile foundation with a platform, and a skeletal, octagonal, pyramidal tower, which is painted red. The light was 100 feet (30 m) above the water. It was the oldest functioning lighthouse of its type in the United States until it was decommissioned in 2015, having been completed in 1852. The light last installed was a xenon flashtube beacon. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
Ambrose Channel is the only shipping channel in and out of the Port of New York and New Jersey. The channel is considered to be part of Lower New York Bay and is located several miles off the coasts of Sandy Hook, New Jersey, and Breezy Point, New York. Ambrose Channel terminates at Ambrose Anchorage, just south of the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge, the gateway to New York Harbor, where it becomes known as the Anchorage Channel. It is named for John Wolfe Ambrose, an engineer from New York.
Lightship Ambrose was the name given to multiple lightships that served as the sentinel beacon marking Ambrose Channel, New York Harbor's main shipping channel.
A Texas Tower lighthouse is a structure which is similar to an off-shore oil platform. Seven of these structures were built in the 1960s off the shores of the United States. Automation started in the late 1970s, which led to the obsolescence of the housing built for the keepers which resulted in such a large structure. Three of the towers were dismantled over time due to deteriorating structural conditions among other problems, while another one was destroyed in a ship collision. The last Texas Tower was deactivated in 2016 having served for over half a century. Today only three of the former lights remain.
Cape Mendocino Light was a navigation light at Cape Mendocino, California. The former lighthouse was relocated to Shelter Cove near Point Delgada, California in 1998, and the historic Fresnel lens to Ferndale, California, in 1948. An automated beacon operated for a number of years but was removed in May 2013.
Stratford Shoal Light, officially Stratford Shoal Light, is a lighthouse on a shoal in the middle of Long Island Sound approximately halfway between Port Jefferson, New York and Bridgeport, Connecticut.
The Staten Island Range Light, also known as the Ambrose Channel Range Light, is the rear range light companion to the West Bank Lighthouse. Built in 1912, the 90-foot tower sits more than five miles northwest of the West Bank Lighthouse, on Staten Island’s Richmond Hill, 141 feet above sea level. It shows a fixed white light that can be seen for 18 miles, by all vessels bound to New York and New Jersey Ports coming in from the Atlantic Ocean.
Chesapeake Light is an offshore lighthouse marking the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay. The structure was first marked with a lightship in the 1930s, and was later replaced by a "Texas Tower" in 1965. The lighthouse was eventually automated and was used for supporting atmospheric measurement sites for NASA and NOAA. Due to deteriorating structural conditions, the lighthouse was deactivated in 2016. At the time, it was the last remaining "Texas Tower" still in use due to obsolescence.
MS Oslofjord was an ocean liner built in 1938 by A/G Weser Shipbuilders, Bremen, Germany, for Norwegian America Line. She was of 18,673 gross register tons and could carry 860 passengers. She would have an uneventful career until 1939 were two separate incidents happened. One from 27 April 1939, where she collided with the American an pilot boat, and another where she struck a mine sinking her.
The Rock of Ages Light is a U.S. Coast Guard lighthouse on a small rock outcropping approximately 2.25 miles (3.62 km) west of Washington Island and 3.5 miles (5.6 km) west of Isle Royale, in Eagle Harbor Township, Keweenaw County, Michigan. It is an active aid to navigation.
The Brenton Reef Light was a Texas tower lighthouse at the entrance to Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, United States, south of Beavertail Point. Erected to replace a lightship in 1962, it was decommissioned in 1989 due to its deteriorating condition.
Diamond Shoal Light is an inactive offshore lighthouse marking Diamond Shoals off Cape Hatteras.
The Detroit River Light, also known as Bar Point Shoal Light, was first established as a lightship in 1875. The current sparkplug lighthouse was built in 1885. It sits in Lake Erie, south of the mouth of the Detroit River, 1.75 nautical miles from land and about 20 nautical miles from the Ambassador Bridge in the Detroit River. It is about 0.4 nautical miles from the border with Canada, and just under 24 nautical miles from Put-in-Bay, Ohio. Its original 4th order Fresnel lens is on loan to the Michigan Maritime Museum.
The Carr is a sandstone reef on the headland between the Firth of Forth and St Andrews Bay. There have been many ships wrecked on the reef, which lies on the busy shipping lanes into the Forth ports and the River Tay.
