Lightship FRYING PAN

United States Lightship #115, built in 1929 as a riveted steel vessel measuring 133’3” by 29’ by 10’ and displacing 600 tons, served at Frying Pan Shoals 30 miles off Cape Fear, North Carolina, from 1930 to 1965. Thirteen men lived aboard to keep the light atop the mast burning and the foghorn sounding in all weather, seasons, and hours. Powered originally by a single 350 HP GE motor supplied by four 6-71 Greymarine Diesel generators, the ship later was abandoned for 10 years at an old oyster cannery in the Chesapeake Bay, sank, and remained underwater for three years before being bought on the bottom at White Haven, Maryland, and raised by its current owners. After tons of silt and oyster shells were removed from the hull, it was refitted with a replacement engine, re-powered in 1989 with a single 370 HP Greymarine VT8370M Diesel engine, and cruised under power to Pier 63 Maritime in Manhattan, where its exterior was restored to its original appearance while the interior retained a barnacle-encrusted sunken-ship character. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

New York, New York · United States