United States lightship Overfalls (LV-118)

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US lightship WAL 539
WAL 539 painted for "OVERFALLS" station, docked in Lewes, Delaware in 2015
History
United States
Name: LV 118
Operator: United States Lighthouse Service/United States Coast Guard
Builder: Rice Brothers, East Boothbay, Maine
Cost: $223,900
Launched: 4 June 1938
Commissioned: 11 September 1938
Decommissioned: 7 November 1972
Renamed:
Status: Museum in Lewes, Delaware
General characteristics
Type: Lightvessel
Displacement: 412 short tons (374 t)
Length: 114 ft 9 in (34.98 m)
Beam: 26 ft (7.9 m)
Draft: 13 ft 4 in (4.06 m)
Installed power: Cooper-Bessemer 8 cylinder air-start Diesel engine, 400 bhp (300 kW)
Propulsion: Single shaft, reduction gear, 7 ft 2 in (2.18 m) propeller
Speed: 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph)
Crew: 14
Lightship WAL-539
United States lightship Overfalls (LV-118) is located in Delaware
United States lightship Overfalls (LV-118)
Location Lewes, Delaware
Coordinates Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
Built 1938
Architect Rice Brothers
NRHP Reference # 89000006
Significant dates
Added to NRHP 16 February 1989[1]
Designated NHL 14 June 2011

Lightship Overfalls (LV-118) (later renumbered WAL-539) was the last lightvessel constructed for the United States Lighthouse Service before the Service became part of the United States Coast Guard.[2] She is currently preserved in Lewes, Delaware as a museum ship.

History

This ship was built to replace LV-44, badly damaged in the New England Hurricane of 1938, for the Cornfield Point station.[2] Patterned after the LV-112,[2] she has a hull unlike that of any of her sisters; in effect, a single-ship class.[3] She is the last riveted-hull lightship built for the US Lighthouse Service, all subsequent ships having welded hulls. Propulsion was diesel, with a set of diesel generators and compressors providing power for the beacon and auxiliaries.[2][4] The light was a duplex 375 mm (14.8 in) lantern on a single mast, at 57 ft (17 m) above the water line.[4] Dual diaphones were provided for a fog signal, as well as a bell and radiobeacon.[2] A radar unit was installed in 1943.[4] The crew complement was fourteen, to serve on a two weeks on/one week off basis.[4] When the lighthouse service was merged into the coast guard in 1939, she was renumbered WAL 539.[2]

LV 118 / WAL 539 served at these stations:[2]

1938-1957: Cornfield Point, Connecticut
1958-1962: Cross Rip, Massachusetts
1962-1972: Boston, Massachusetts

Unlike most US lightships WAL 539 remained on station during World War II.[3] A severe storm in December 1970 damaged the ship, leading to her decommissioning on November 7, 1972.[5] Upon retirement WAL 539 was donated to the Lewes Historical Society and placed on display in Lewes, Delaware, painted for the "OVERFALLS" station, though she never served there.[3] The ship's condition deteriorated and a failed attempt in 1999 to sell her led to the formation of a separate group, the Overfalls Maritime Museum Foundation, to take over the maintenance and restore the vessel.[6] She remains in Lewes and is available for tours.[6]

The lightship was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989, and in 2011 was further designated a National Historic Landmark.[7]

See also

References

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External links