Lightships and Lighthouses

by Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot

The average crew for a lightship numbers some seven men under a captain and mate, who take it in turns to have charge of the vessel, the second official being responsible during the former’s spell of leave on shore. The crew is not a man too many, owing to the several and varied duties to be performed, especially when the storm-fiend is roused or fog pays a visit. The arrival of the latter demands the foghorn’s mournful dirge to penetrate the dense white curtain. Some of the vessels possess a hooter, the unmusical wail of which in its discordance is almost sufficient to put false teeth on edge, because a blast runs through the whole chromatic gamut with variations which would startle a disciple of Tschaikowsky or Wagner. But discordance in this instance is of incalculable value. The ear of the captain of a passing vessel is unconsciously arrested; he can distinguish the sound readily, and by noting its character can identify the particular light-vessel from which it proceeds, although he cannot get a glimpse of her form.

The southern coasts of England, owing to the density of the maritime traffic, especially on both sides of the bottle-neck formed by the Straits of Dover, are well patrolled by this form of warning which supplements the lighthouses. Those guarding the dreaded Goodwin Sands perhaps are the most important. The crew of a vessel in these waters is busy throughout the day and night even in calm, clear weather, and the feeling of isolation is not so pronounced, since the continuous sight of traffic dispels despondency. The Nore light is another station which encounters very few minutes of rest throughout the complete revolution of the clock hands; especially is this the case when fog settles down, rendering the Thames inapproachable, so that incoming craft have to line up in long queues, ready to dash forward directly the pall lifts sufficiently for them to see 100 yards ahead.

There have been some exciting incidents among the lights strung around the south-eastern toe of England. The vessel outside Dover harbour appears to be particularly unlucky, or to exercise such a peculiar magnetism upon passing vessels that they must needs embrace her. This is the peril that a lightship crew dreads more than any other. Certainly it seems a sorry trick of Fortune that occasionally the workers in the cause of humanity should be compelled to fight desperately for their lives from a blow inflicted by the very interests they strive might and main to protect. The Dover light was sent to the bottom twice within a very short time, and in each instance the men were rescued only in the nick of time. On another occasion a relief lightship was being towed to a station on the east coast, the acting vessel being much in need of overhaul and repair. The tug laboured through the North Sea with her charge, and just before daybreak sighted the twinkling light which was her goal. She eased up, meaning to stand by with her charge until the beacon’s round of vigilance should be over, and the light extinguished before the gathering dawn. Her crew saw the light grow dimmer, until it was no longer of sufficient power to penetrate the whitening haze. With the sun just creeping over the horizon the tug weighed anchor, and, heralding her approach vociferously on the siren, steamed slowly towards the danger spot. To the surprise of the captain, there came no answering blare. When he thought he was alongside the light-vessel he stopped, and the haze lifted. But there was no sign of the light-vessel; she had vanished completely. The captain of the tug and the master of the relief-boat wondered what had happened, but without more ado the relief-ship was moored in position, and the tug returned home empty-handed. There the crew heard one of those grim stories sometimes related in the service. The light-keepers had sighted the tug with the relief-vessel, and were anticipating keenly their return to civilization, when there was a crash! A cliff of steel reared above them like a knife-edge; a vessel had blundered into them, cutting their home in two. The next moment they were shot pell-mell into the water as their craft sank beneath their feet.

On a calm day, when the lightship is riding quietly at anchor, and the members of the crew, maybe, are beguiling the tedium by fishing, a passer-by on a liner is apt to consider the life one of quietness and enjoyment, albeit monotonous. But contrast this placidity with the hours of storm. Then the ungainly vessel writhes and twists, saws and rasps at the chains which hold her prisoner. At one moment, with bow uplifted, she is on the crest of a spray-enveloped roller; the next instant she drives her dipping nose into the hissing white and green valley, meanwhile lurching and staggering wildly as she ships a sea, first on this side and then on that.

The plight of the lighthouse-keeper in a gale is unenviable, but it is far and away preferable to that of the lightship crew under similar circumstances. The tower may bow slightly like a tree before the storm, and the waves may cause it to shiver at times, but that is the only movement. On the lightship the crew appear to be tossed, rolled, and spun, in all directions simultaneously. The deck becomes untenable, but the men in the performance of their duties have to grope and crawl from point to point, holding on grimly with both hands when an angry sea douches them. The spherical ball overhead gyrates in an amazing manner, as if it were a pendulum bob boxing the compass. The crew have a stiff struggle, to keep everything below safe and sound, while the waves, as they come aboard, thump on the deck as if determined to smash it to splinters, and to drive the whole fabric to the bottom. To be so unlucky as to be run down by a passing craft under such conditions is certain death, as there is no hope of rescue in such maddened seas.

The crew of an English ship emerged badly battered from one heavy gale. Two or three rollers got aboard, and drove their blows well home, pulverizing the lifeboat on deck, and tearing up stretches of the bulwarks by the roots. The crew were flung about like shuttlecocks. One of the hands was making his way cautiously along the deck, trying to maintain equilibrium upon an alarming incline, when a breaker struck him from behind. He grabbed the ratlins to secure himself, but his hand was wrenched away, and he was flung against the mast, where the wave left him. He was half stunned by the concussion, but a comrade, realizing his plight, dashed forward while the vessel rolled over in the other direction, grabbed the prostrate form by the collar of its coat, and dragged it into the companion-way. The man’s face was disfigured, and when bathed it was found to have been cut, or rather burst, open from the eye to the chin by the force of the blow.

Bad weather tends to make the crew despondent at times, inasmuch as its persistency holds them prisoners, so that they cannot get ashore when the relief day comes round. During some seasons of the year a delay of ten or twelve days is not uncommon, owing to the weather, but the men on the relief tender are so used to hard knocks and rough seas that they do not wait for an absolute calm to achieve their purpose. Heavy risks are incurred often in order to lighten the lives of those who guard the deep by bringing them ashore as near to the scheduled date as possible.

Another ship that has to mount guard over a dangerous corner of the coast of England is that which indicates the cluster of rocks lying between Land’s End and the Scilly Isles, about sixteen miles off the mainland. For the most part the reef is submerged, but as the water goes down seven ugly scattered pinnacles thrust themselves into the air. They are terrible fangs with which to rip out the bottom of a steamer, and they have accomplished their fell work only too often. The number of the projections has given its name to the graveyard, which is known far and wide as the Seven Stones, though the mariner refers to them simply as The Stones.

It would be difficult to say offhand which has claimed the greater number of victims from the mercantile marine—the sucking, glue-like sands of the Goodwins, or the splitting granite teeth of the Seven Stones; they run a close race for ill-fame. The latter lie right in the path of vessels rounding the western toe of England, and the sea-bed on all sides of them is littered with the shivered timbers of wooden sailing-ships, the splintered iron and steel of steamers, and the bones of scores of unfortunate passengers and crews. Although a light of 12,000 candle-power strives to warn the seafarer, now and again there is a miscalculation, and the intimation is conveyed to the mainland: “Ship and all hands lost.”

It was in 1841, owing to the frequency and severity of the disasters at this spot, that Trinity House decided to guard it with a lightship. A lighthouse would be preferable, but there is such small foothold for the engineer, and the position is so fearfully exposed, that the erection of a masonry tower would prove a costly and tedious enterprise. So the only feasible alternative was adopted, and the vessel is kept abreast of modern developments in this phase of coast lighting. Lying as it does in a somewhat narrow channel, yet open to the full roll of the terrible westerly gales, it meets the Atlantic thundering through this constricted passage with awe-inspiring violence. It has often suffered greatly from the fury of the sea. Once a wave tumbled aboard, crashed a man against the pump, knocked him half senseless; picked up the lifeboat and threw it against the deck-house, and in so doing caught another member of the crew, mauling his thigh badly in passing. Two out of the seven men forming the crew were thus put hors de combat by a single wave. The taut little vessel rides in 40 fathoms of water, about one and a half miles eastward of the danger spot, as even a lightship must not be moored too closely to a ridge, or she herself would incur the risk of being pounded to fragments.