5616 x 3744 px | 47,5 x 31,7 cm | 18,7 x 12,5 inches | 300dpi
Data acquisizione:
5 ottobre 2018
Ubicazione:
Boston Harbour, Massachusetts, USA
Altre informazioni:
The Nantucket Lightship or United States Lightship WLV-612 (Nantucket I) is a lightvessel commissioned in 1950 that became the last lightship decommissioned in United States Coast Guard service. The Nantucket Lightship was launched in 1950 and put into service in 1951 as the San Francisco Lightship, 8.6 miles offshore of the Point Bonita Lighthouse and the Golden Gate where it was in service until 1969. From 1969 to 1971, it served as the Blunts Reef Lightship at Blunt's Freed near the Cape Mendocino Light in Northern California. From 1971 to 1975 it served as the Portland Lightship marking the entrance to Portland, Maine. It was the last lightship to serve as the Portland Lightship in 1975 when it was replaced by a Large Navigational Buoy. The Coast Guard estimated that it would spend $250, 000 per year maintaining the LNB whereas a lightship cost $3 million in addition to the cost of crew In 1975 until 1983, the WLV-612 was reassigned as the Lightship Nantucket at Nantucket Shoals, a dangerous shoal 40 miles South East of Nantucket Island. From 1979-1983 the WLV-612 and the United States Lightship WLV-613 alternated at Nantucket Shoals as the Nantucket I and the Nantucket II, relieving each other approximately every 21 days. On September 1, 1983, while alternating with the Nantucket II the WLV-612 served as a radar and security-communications platform off of the Bush compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, US Vice President George H.W. Bush was on board when he learned the Soviet Union had shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 while passing through Soviet Airspace near the Soviet-Alaskan border. The incident propelled the Reagan Administration to allow worldwide civilian access to DNSS/Navstar, the military satellite navigation system that became GPS. The Nantucket Lightship was decommissioned in Boston on March 29, 1985. After decommissioning, Nantucket Lightship was purchased by the Boston Educational Marine Exchange but returned within the year to the General Servic
