After just a year of service, WLV-613 underwent a transformation that made it unique amongst U.S. lightships: it received a tripod foremast topped by a cylindrical, lighthouse-style lantern room housing a new multi-catoptric biform optical apparatus, manufactured by Chance Brothers Ltd. of Birmingham, England. Capable of producing a light with an intensity varying from 250,000 to 5 million candlepower in three steps, the beacon made WLV-613 the brightest of all American lightships.

WLV-613 serving as Lightship Ambrose Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

On June 24th of 1960, Relief Lightship LV 78 was temporarily anchored at Ambrose Station while WLV-613’s engines were being overhauled at Coast Guard Base St. George on Staten Island. Early that morning, the Green Bay was outbound from Port Newark, New Jersey loaded with 8,100 tons of general cargo. Shortly after the pilot, who had navigated the vessel out of the harbor in a very dense fog, boarded the pilot boat to return to port, the Green Bay captain steered his vessel towards the lightship, which according to radar was estimated to be about a mile distant.

At approximately the same moment, lookouts aboard the lightship and the cargo vessel vessels realized that the Green Bay was on a collision course with the lightship. The captain of the Green Bay immediately changed course and increased speed, but after realizing the lightship was too close to avoid a collision, he ordered the engines full astern. Meanwhile, aboard the lightship, the general alarm was sounded, and all nine crewmembers, seven of whom had been asleep, mustered to the weather deck, where they witnessed the bow of the Green Bay puncture the starboard side of the lightship between the letters “R” and “E” in RELIEF. As the forward momentum of the Green Bay stopped and it backed away, water started pouring through the 12-foot-long and 3-foot-wide gash left in the lightship’s hull. The commanding officer aboard the lightship ordered his crew to abandon ship and seek refuge in a self-inflating rubber raft. Using their hands as paddles, the men tried to put as much distance between themselves and the lightship to avoid being struck by a mast or caught in the undertow of the sinking lightship.

While desperately trying to locate the Green Bay which had disappeared into the fog, the men in the life raft were nearly run over by the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth, whose crew failed to notice the men or hear their hand whistles. After over an hour on the water, the men aboard the life raft were finally located by a motor lifeboat launched by the Green Bay. A patrol boat took the men to the Coast Guard base on Staten Island, and later that afternoon, WLV-613, unable to travel under her own power, was towed out to the Ambrose Station to relieve a Coast Guard cutter that had been substituting as a lightship.

Lightship WLV-613 Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

WLV-613 served at Ambrose Station until 1967, when a Texas-style tower, prefabricated in Norfolk, Virginia at a cost of approximately $2.4 million, was used to mark the station. On August 23rd, WLV-613 circled the new tower three times, and then left the station for the last time.

For the next twelve years, WLV-613 served as a Relief Lightship in Massachusetts before being designated Nantucket II in 1979 and assigned to serve alternating three-week assignments at the Nantucket Shoals Station with its sister ship WLV-612 (Nantucket I). These two lightships were the youngest lightships in the United States, and the Nantucket Shoals Station was the final active lightship station. At 2:30 a.m. on December 20th, 1983, WLV-613 relieved WLV-612 and at 8 a.m. that same day, a large navigational buoy officially relieved WLV-613, making it the last lightship to be in service in the United States. After its service as a lightship, WLV-613 participated in various law enforcement, security, and public relations missions until it was decommissioned and donated to the New England Historic Seaport in 1984 for use as a floating museum in Boston.

The non-profit New England Historic Seaport cared for the lightship until 1996 when the organization was amalgamated into another non-profit group, Schools for Children, which had no interest in maintaining the lightship. Instead, the vessel was offered for sale through National Ship Liquidators for $110,000 and probably would have had its identity as a lightship compromised if a group of concerned individuals hadn’t stepped in to purchase the lightship.

In 1998, WLV-613 was being cared for by Friends of the Lightship, a volunteer group with lots of spirit but little money, at Marina Bay in Quincy, when Jack Baker discovered the lightship. With no funds available for repairs, the vessel was likely going to be scrapped, so Baker stepped in and purchased the lightship. Baker originally thought he could get a group of volunteers to help refurbish the lightship, but when this plan didn’t work out, he personally funded a million-dollar-plus overhaul of the historic vessel.

The lightship was outfitted with a new keel, new plumbing and electrical work, tiled bathrooms, cabinetry, and cranberry carpeting. While the galley retains its gleaming stainless steel workspace and stove, the convenience of a modern refrigerator and a microwave was added. The engines and mushroom and Danforth anchors were all cleaned and painted to make the vessel seaworthy once more.

In September of 1999, WLV-613 sailed to New Bedford, under command of Norman Lemoine, to be on hand for the dedication of a memorial to those who lost their lives aboard lightships. The centerpiece of the memorial is a bell recovered in 1963 from the Vineyard Sound Lightship, which sank in the 1944 Hurricane. As part of the dedication activities, the public was allowed to tour WLV-613 and a modern Coast Guard cutter.

WLV-613 was placed on the market for $1.6 million in 2002, but apparently did not change hands as the lightship is still docked in Wareham, Massachusetts, where it has been berthed since being restored by Jack Baker.

Lightship Specifications

• Builder: USCG Yard, Curtis Bay, Maryland.
• Length: 128' 0"
• Beam: 30'0"
• Draft: 11'0"
• Displacement: 617 Tons
• Illumination Apparatus: Duplex 375mm electric lens lantern mounted above gallery on foremast; 15, 000cp each light
• Propulsion: Detroit - Quad arrangement
• Fog Signal: Twin F2T diaphones mounted aft of pilot house

Station Assignments

• 1952 – 1967: Ambrose Channel (NY)
• 1967 – 1979: Relief (MA)
• 1979 – 1983: Nantucket Shoals (MA)

References

1. USCG Lightship Index.
2. “Shipshape and shining again a nautical lover spends $1M to rescue historic lightship,” , Paul E. Kandarian, The Boston Globe, June 10, 2001.
3. “Coast Guard, city to honor lightship dead,” Jack Stewardson, The Standard-Times, September 14, 1999.
4. “The National Lightship Trust Is Born,” Jerry Roberts, Lighthouse Digest, April, 1997.