Lightship Portsmouth

Lightships were floating lighthouses anchored at the entrances to ports and bays and at the outer limits of danger areas such as shoals and reefs, serving as aids to navigation where lighthouses could not go or were too expensive to build. They could work in deeper waters than a lighthouse, shift positions, and use many types of signals, but they were expensive to maintain, dangerous in fog, and required crews of 8-15 men who were isolated and exposed to terrible weather. Lightship 101 was built under a contract awarded in 1912 to Pusey and Jones of Delaware, launched in 1916, and stationed at Smith Island Shoals, Virginia, for eight years. After breaking down in 1924, it was refitted, repaired, and assigned to Overfalls, Delaware. In 1939 the Coast Guard redesignated it WAL524. Withdrawn from duty and overhauled in 1951, it was assigned to Nantucket Station, then stationed at Stonehouse Shoals off the New England coast in 1952. Its last duty was as a relief vessel at Cross Rip Shoals in Nantucket Sound in 1963. After breaking down en route to Boston in 1964, it was retired. In 1967 the City of Portsmouth placed the vessel on the waterfront as a museum, and in 1989 Lightship Portsmouth was designated a National Historic Landmark.

Portsmouth, Virginia · United States