Lightships

When German U-boats sank steamers and lightships all up and down the East Coast, two and sometimes three a day, Ruby imagined them lurking off the beach at Coney Island. ❋ Joseph Wallace (2010)

The lighthouses, lightships, sea marks, channels and harbours of the world were suffering from a decade of economy, a decade of wartime destruction and a decade of chaos and decay. ❋ Herbert George (2006)

The lightships were attacked and … defeated, she emphasized. ❋ Della Van Hise (1990)

Only those aboard our lightships will have any memory of First History at all—and we can no longer permit ourselves to respond to the things of our past. ❋ Della Van Hise (1990)

An air from the west, cooled by a midday thunderstorm, followed the steamer as she slid through the calm channels of the Thames estuary, passed the cordon of scintillating lightships that watch over the sea-roads to the imperial city like pickets round a sleeping army, and slipped out into the dark spaces of the North Sea. ❋ Childers, Erskine, 1870-1922 (1955)

The House, having listened intently to this artless conversation, proceeded to business of the day, which happily included the adoption of a Resolution engaging the Government to connect with the mainland, by telephone or telegraph, the lighthouses and lightships that twinkle round our stormy coasts. ❋ Various (N/A)

"Yes," replied her father; "those on the east coast of Sweden have several months in the winter when the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia are covered with solid ice; but on the south and west coasts the lighthouses and even the lightships are lighted all winter." ❋ Etta Blaisdell McDonald (N/A)

The vessel's flare had now burned out, and the guns and rockets from the lightships had ceased, and in front of the lifeboat was only the chill night, 'black as a wolf's throat.' ❋ Thomas Stanley Treanor (N/A)

As soon as I arrived, therefore, I put on my yachting cap (white, with a gold anchor embroidered in front), hired a boat and a small boy, and directed him to row me immediately to one of the lightships. ❋ Various (N/A)

Sovereign and Varne lightships, and had a most happy three days 'cruise. ❋ Thomas Stanley Treanor (N/A)

"Moonlight Sonata", and the officials of our leading lightships will be asked to report upon PARRY'S "Blest Pair of Sirens." ❋ Various (N/A)

That sent by England in 1872, of which Sir Frederick Arrow was chairman, and Captain Webb, R.N., recorder, reported so favorably on it that since then "twenty-two sirens have been placed at the most salient lighthouses on the British coasts, and sixteen on lightships moored in position where a guiding signal is of the greatest service to passing navigation." ❋ Various (N/A)

He could study out the precise spot carefully beforehand -- there are lightships on the sands to act as guides. ❋ Various (N/A)

We broke our rudder; the lightships, on which a certain number of pilots were always to be found, had all been blown out to sea; and as we had only just sufficient coal to take us up the ❋ Frederick Sleigh Roberts (N/A)

Several lightships with their crews have been recently dispensed with in France, and gas buoys substituted. ❋ Australia. Queensland. Department Of Ports And Harbours (N/A)

_ -- Gongs are somewhat used on lightships, especially in British waters. ❋ Various (N/A)

Tyndall proposes to call it the Collinson rocket, and suggests that it might be used in lighthouses and lightships as a signal by naval vessels. ❋ Various (N/A)

English lightships fire guns to attract the attention of the lifeboat crew when shipwrecks take place in sight of the ships, but out of sight of the boats; and guns are used as signals of approaching floods at freshet times in various countries. ❋ Various (N/A)

❋ Anonymous (2003)