Lightships: Their Design, Development and Diversity

by Anthony Lane

Lightships guided ships of all nations past offshore reefs and sandbanks that posed extreme hazards to navigation where lighthouses could not be built. This book describes their design, construction and evolution over more than two centuries of service. Originally constructed from teak, they progressed through iron hulls to steel. Their lights burnt whale oil, colza oil, then paraffin before electricity provided the greatest brightness. Fog warnings were given by bells, gongs, reed horns and sirens before reaching maximum power with the diaphone, which could be heard up to 10 miles away. All these features, most of which resulted from major scientific and engineering advances made in the nineteenth century, are examined here.

For hundreds of years lightships made the sea lanes around Great Britain far safer for navigators. Their history and development are well documented through the rare images and detailed information contained within this book.

96 pages, Paperback

Published October 15, 2024

About the author

Anthony Lane has been a film critic for The New Yorker since 1993. Lane became the deputy literary editor of The Independent, in London, in 1989, and, a year later, a film critic for The Independent on Sunday.

In 2001, Lane’s reviews were awarded the National Magazine Award for Reviews and Criticism. His writings for The New Yorker are collected in the book “Nobody’s Perfect.”

Lane lives in Cambridge, England.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/bio... lane