FreightWaves Classics: Lightship goes into the Frying Pan

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Background

The United States Lighthouse Service (USLHS), which was also known as the Bureau of Lighthouses, was the federal bureau as well as the general lighthouse authority for the United States. It was established by Congress in 1910 as the successor to the United States Lighthouse Board. An agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, it was in existence until 1939, when it was merged into the United States Coast Guard (USCG). The Lighthouse Service was responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of all lighthouses and lightvessels in the United States.

When the USLHS was established In 1910, there were almost 12,000 aids to navigation of all types around the nation. In addition, the placement of aids to navigation along rivers became the responsibility of the Lighthouse Service.

Beginning as a clerk in the Coast and Geodetic Survey, George R. Putnam was chosen by President William Taft to head the USLHS as the Commissioner of Lighthouses. Putnam headed the bureau for 25 years; he retired in 1935 after 45 continuous years as a civil servant. 

The United States Coast Guard began the George R. Putnam Inspirational Leadership Award in his honor. 

During Putnam’s tenure there was a substantial increase in the number of navigational aids (from 11,713 to 24,000). In addition, new technology was incorporated, particularly electric aids and some automation using electricity. The number of aids to navigation increased substantially during Putnam’s term; mostly buoys and small lights. 

During and after World War I, there were a number of technological advances that contributed to the automation of lighthouses. Among them were a device to automatically replace lighthouses’ burned-out electric lamps; a bell alarm that warned lighthouse keepers of fluctuations in the burning efficiency of oil-vapor lamps; and in 1917, the first experimental radio beacon was installed in a lighthouse.

In 1921, radio beacons became much more common as navigational aids. This technology led to a reduction of over 800 USLHS employees during the period that Putnam headed the bureau.

The first automatic radio beacon went into service in 1928. While radio beacons are still being used today, most have been decommissioned as improved electronic navigational aids are used. 

Among other technological improvements were an automatic time clock used to operate electric range lights that was introduced in 1926, and a photoelectric-controlled alarm device to check the operation of unwatched electric lights in automated lighthouses came on-line in 1933. This was followed in 1934 by a remote-control lightship that included a light, fog signal and radio beacon, all of which were controlled by radio signals. The following year, a battery-powered buoy was introduced that gradually replaced older acetylene buoys. These technological improvements (particularly the radio beacon direction finder), helped the United States rise from sixth in shipping safety in 1920 to second in 1935 (only the Netherlands had a better safety record).

Lightships

Lightships were built to serve as navigational aids in waters too deep or otherwise unsuitable for lighthouses. Lightships marked dangerous moving sandbars, shoals, low water areas, harbor entrances and rivers’ mouths. Used along the coastlines of the United States and in the Great Lakes, 120 lightship stations were established. Nearly 180 lightships were built; unlike U.S. Navy vessels, there was little uniformity among the lightships. Some had wooden hulls and were powered by sails, others were iron-hulled and were powered by diesel engines. The last lightship was launched in 1952, and the last lightship was replaced in 1985. 

One of the most dangerous places along the U.S. Atlantic coast is Frying Pan Shoals, which are about 30 miles off of Cape Fear, North Carolina. “The Frying Pan Shoals are a line of shallow sandbars extending from the southeastern tip of Bald Head Island (the actual Cape Fear) southward for more than 28 miles into the Atlantic Ocean.” There were numerous complaints from mariners in 1854 that the height of the existing Bald Head (North Carolina) Lighthouse was inadequate, and that the light from its lens was not bright enough to warn ships about the shallow waters of the treacherous shoals. Instead of trying to improve the lighthouse, the first lightship was stationed on the shoals. Lightships remained on station in the Frying Pan Shoals for 110 years.

On August 30, 1929, the U.S. Lighthouse Service’s Lightship 115 (LV-115) was launched in Charleston, South Carolina. Beginning in 1930 LV-115 was stationed at Frying Pan Shoals. The ship measured more than 130 feet in length, and was the ninth lightship to serve on the shoals since 1854. In addition to its light, horn and manually operated bell, the LV-115 was equipped with radio, radio-beacon and submarine signal bell when built.

LV-115 went by the name Frying Pan Shoals Lightship. It remained at anchor on Frying Pan Shoals until 1942. After the United States entered World War II the ship was commissioned as a Coast Guard examination vessel at Cristóbal near the Panama Canal, inspecting ships and boats at this critical waterway. As a USCG vessel, the lightship was designated WAL 537. In 1944 and 1945, the Frying Pan performed the same duty at the Port of Charleston.

Following the war, the LV-115 returned to her station on Frying Pan Shoals. In 1960 the ship endured the wind and waves generated by Hurricane Donna. Almost all of the chain that was attached to the vessel’s 10,000-pound anchor was extended in preparation for the hurricane. When the hurricane hit on September 12, the ship’s crew were unsure if the ship was capable of righting itself after a particularly severe roll of 70°. 

Estimates of the height of the seas during the hurricane to have been roughly half of the ship’s length. As the ship rode the top of each wave, the crew members knew the ship was being pushed by the seas and dragging its anchor. They worried that the Frying Pan would fall victim to the very shoals from which it was meant to protect other ships.

After the hurricane passed, the lightship was 14 miles south of its assigned position. Crewman David Melvin said life aboard the lightship during his five years of service ranged from “sheer loneliness and boredom, to all the excitement you could stand.” 

The Frying Pan was retired in 1964. The venerable lightship was replaced by a lighttower that year, which was manned until 1979. 

After leaving Frying Pan Shoals, the vessel was a relief ship at Cape May, New Jersey, for a year until it was decommissioned in 1965. The ship sank in 1986, but was raised in 1987. It was resold and its restoration began in 1988. The LV-115 was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

Out of about 100 lightships that were built, the Frying Pan is one of about a dozen that survive. The former LV-115 is now moored at a pier in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood. Other lightships, including Ambrose at South Street Seaport in New York City, Nantucket at Oyster Bay, Long Island, Chesapeake at Baltimore Inner Harbor and Swiftsure at Northwest Seaport, became National Historic Landmarks. These ships are now museum ships that are open to the public.

FreightWaves Classics thanks the U.S. Lighthouse Society, the United States Coast Guard, lighthousefriends.com, and Wikipedia for information and photos that contributed to this article.

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Editor: Scott Mall