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Gallery
The Nore lightship in 1833. An engraving by William Tombleson
Christmas celebrations aboard LV 73 at the Tongue in 1910
The oil room aboard a wooden lightship
The eight-foot diameter, 2-tonne lightship lantern introduced about 1880
Cleaning the lantern glazing at night
An Argand oil lamp and parabolic reflector as fitted to lantern shown earlier
L The clockwork motor used to rotate the lamp assembly
The bell, the earliest means of giving a warning to shipping in fog
Chinese gongs replaced the bell aboard British lightships in 1832
Carronades were used to warn ships standing into danger
The Cylinder (above) and piston of a diaphone, the loudest fog signal
The binnacle of a later lightship
A post-war Christmas visit to the Tongue lightship
Christmas weather at the Varne in 1938
The Cork lightship off Harwich ca 1900
Lightship 65 on relief duty at the Varne in 1958
Iron lightship 71 moored at the South Goodwin between the wars
Sister LV72 upgraded and electrified at English & Welsh Grounds in 1968
First of the new post war series of 17 vessels at the Tongue in 1951
Lightship 90 at the South Goodwin station in 1952
LV 90 was lost with all her crew on the same sands in November 1954
Lightship 19 represented the final development of the British vessels
Seven Stones vessels experience the roughest conditions of any station
LV 21 of the same series in much calmer weather at East Goodwin
Relief of crews by helicopter commenced in the 1970s
LV78 at Calshot Spit was the first vessel to be automated in 1973
The crews were taken off in the 1980s as the ships were automated
Finally solar power replaced continuously running diesel generators
Gradually the ships themselves are being withdrawn- as South Goodwin was in 2006
LANBY, the proposed replacement for light vessels was not a success in the end
Automatic lightfloats like this German example are still in use today
LV 95 is now a recording studio at Trinity Buoy Wharf opposite the O2 arena