The Floating Lighthouse in New York: The Lightship Ambrose

tomscott.com - / tomscott - With many thanks to the South Street Seaport Museum! Visit them at southstreetseap... or at Pier 16 in New York.
These days, if you have dangerous, underwater shoals and you need a lighthouse, you build a big tower and anchor it to the seabed. But a hundred years ago, that technology wasn't there: and so you'd build a lightvessel: a floating lighthouse with a crew of twelve, who's stay out in the dangerous channel in all weathers. At the South Street Seaport Museum, Mike Weiss, the waterfront foreman, gave me a tour around the Lightship Ambrose.
(Apologies for the audio on this one: I was shooting quickly, and it turns out it's windy on the East River in New York!)

[@zodexyphr544]

I didn't know lightships existed -- until yesterday, when I was reading about them on Wikipedia. And I mean of course Tom Scott would make a video about them literally the day after. Thanks, universe.

[@bertil0424]

The universe is love. Take care of yourself ☺

[@brianartillery]

There are still Lightvessels around the UK coast, and, like the Lighthouses, they are all now automated. Trinity House is the authority that maintains these facilities. Payment for their upkeep is a toll levied by Trinity House on all large vessels using British Sovereign waters. The toll is called, unsurprisingly, 'Lights'. Twenty five years ago, I worked as a shipping agent for a company that ran a fleet of what would be seen today as small [8 - 10,000 tons] ships. Part of my job was to go to the local Customs house and pay this toll upon a ship's arrival. The payment was for inward and outward voyages, and was usually in the region of sixteen to twenty thousand pounds. Money well spent, methinks.

[@glennmiller394]

Thanks for the closed captioning, Tom. I'm nearly deaf and struggle to understand you sometimes. This is so, so helpful.

[@henke37]

That's open captioning. Closed captioning lets you turn it off. As well as swap it out for a translated version.

[@bobkendomowitz9534]

@@henke37 you replied to a deaf person 5 years after their comment just to tell them they’re wrong

[@stinksorstonks1498]

"QUIT FLEXING YOUR LAMBORGHINI AND BUY SOME DAMN SUBTITLES!"

[@celestialtree8602]

@@henke37 There's also closed captioning on the same video. It has Hungarian too, no idea what the translation quality is like though.

[@fubarlife7776]

Yeppers very helpful

[@RichardB1983]

The story about lightships being dangerous sitting ducks in fog came true in May 1934, when Titanic's sister ship, Olympic, rammed and sank the Nantucket Lightship off Cape Cod whilst aiming for the lightship's radio beacon in thick fog. A few months earlier the same lightship was sideswiped by another vessel.

[@jaypeper]

Lightships were fairly common along the german coast at least during the better part of the 20th century. Some of them survived and at least one of them was in it's career sunk, raised and later rebuild as a tall ship for civilian sail training. (In fact, you may know her, as she was heaviliy featured in commercials for a certain beer brand. She only retired in 2011, after 105 years in service. In german these ships are called Feuerschiff which translastes as "fire ship"

[@HampshireBrony]

If you listen to the extended Shipping Forecast (0048), there are inshore reports from Sandettie Lightvessel Automatic, Greenwich Lightvessel Automatic and Channel Lightvessel Automatic. www.trinityhouse.co.uk/lighthouses/light_vessels/index.html

[@cybergeek11235]

"Lightship" is a really cool term, just in and of itself.

How do you manage to be the only channel that I directly receive notifications for on my phone? I think this would be a good topic to investigate

[@TomScottGo]

***** I have absolutely no idea. A friend of mine got a notification on their smartwatch the last time I uploaded a video - my face taking over the entire watchdial. It's up to KZbin - I don't tick any box saying 'send notification'!

[@SpeedyDrawMcGraw]

KZbin seems to have some sort of algorith based on what you watch and when as well as a bit of randomness that determines what notifications you get.

[@Nydestroyer]

***** Yep for some reason out of my 150 or so subscriptions you are the only one that pops up as a notification. Clearly hacks :P

[@JustaBystander]

Nydestroyer Up on the subscribe button there is a little cog, click on it to alter whether or not you get a notification. All, or at least most have this cog wheel, Tom Scott is the only channel where this has been auto pressed for me though. Nice touch :) ("Something you might not have known").

[@JustaBystander]

Justa Bystander Talking to myself... it probably got auto pressed by KZbin because I have watched ALL of Toms videos, yes even those early ones on his (UNI) site. Keep up the output Tom.

[@UnholyGaming2012]

In Gillingham, Medway, Kent, there is LV21. Its a big red lighthouse boat. Other side of the shore in Hoo, there are many lighthouse boats morred up. May be worth going there,

[@sirrliv]

Funny the gentleman mentioned the risk of ships running into the lightship. On May 15, 1934, the RMS Olympic, sister ship of the infamous Titanic, was making her way into New York through thick fog when she collided with the Nantucket Lightship, slicing it clean in half. Of the lightship's crew of 11, 7 were rescued by the Olympic and taken to New York, though sadly 3 died of their injuries.

[@andredaoust6034]

sirrliv Thats only 10....?

[@sirrliv]

If I recall my sources correctly, 1 sailor was sadly lost in the wreck itself.

[@MrJoeyWheeler]

how on earth do I keep finding out more eerie things about the Olympic?

[@ZanHecht]

Not THE Nantucket lightship, A Nantucket lightship. 11 lightships had that name, the one you are referring to was Lightship 117. Its replacement, Lightship 112, is a museum ship in Boston Harbor, and its replacement, Lightship 612, is also docked in New York City.

[@Macarite]

There are lots of lightships still in the UK. I regularly stay in one which is beached in the Thames Estuary in essex, it has been bought by a charity which uses it as a hub to do water sports (mainly sailing) off of, the charity is called FACT, google them! I also saw another one with a very similar design docked in Portsmouth which I have pictures of :)

[@NainaRedhu]

Very cool ***** My husband is a sailor in the merchant navy - I will check his "general knowledge" :P

[@jbuller]

"Between 2005 and 2008 the former Danish lightship "Lightship X" (Ten) was moored on the west dock [in St Katherines Dock, London], and used as a restaurant, before returning to Denmark."

[@lua504]

There is a lighthouse ship called the “Relief” that was struck and sunk by a ship coming through the channel in foggy conditions. Myself and many other have dove on this ship.

[@mattjones2303]

There's a lightship much closer to home you could have talked about. The varne lightship in the English Chanel, unmanned now, but still operational.

[@matthemod]

We had a lightship that was moored in the River Medway in Kent, it's since been turned into a super-cool art gallery.

[@lukearoo]

indeed, they are quite common even though quite redundant and fully automated these days around the east coast of England, there's a fleet of them being towed in and out of harwich Harbour by trinity house, there's even a museum one parked up on harwich Quay

[@pieter1102]

Thanks for reminding us of the essential work the lightships have been doing for many years.

[@otakuribo]

Quite possibly the coolest name ever for any vessel: the Lightship Ambrose. Wish I'd thought of it first.

[@stoutyyyy]

I've been on the Chesapeake lightship in Baltimore, it's pretty impressive

[@Showsni]

I didn't realise they were that rare... There's one that's usually moored outside Sainsbury's on the Sharpness Canal near here.

[@Asher535]

+Showsni Was literally about to say the same thing, pass by the thing whenever I go to the shop. Never thought it was reasonable.

[@ClarinoI]

Could have saved yourself a trip to New York there Tom, there's one in Hull too. She's called Spurn.

[@maxhatfull3949]

There's a pair quite near Harwich, when I did my competent crew I was told to use one as a mark

[@Ben31337l]

I've herd these lighthouse boats existing from the old TV show known as TUGS, all episodes are up on youtube.

[@Vinemaple]

I got to see the ground tackle on the Swiftsure lightship at the Center for Wooden Boats by squeeing at the "adorable little" ground tackle on Virginia V. The docent was amused and enjoyed having a pro mariner on the tour, and took me aboard the off-limits lightship to see the winch for the huge mushroom anchor. It's installed crooked by design, because it's so big.

[@kmcat]

Cardiff bay has a light house ship

[@Ekircher5]

The Titanic's sister ship the RMS Olympic collided with a light ship in heavy fog in 1935 and sank it killing everyone on the lightship. Dangerous work.

[@AndyHappyGuy]

Not everyone, some were rescued.

[@DavidS-vs5mj]

The accident was in 1934 and then the RMS Olympic was retired and scrapped in 1935

[@jimfilms6688]

I was tricked into believing the lighthouse was levitating 😂

[@PikarinePlays]

There is a disused lightship in Southampton still. It was on display on land outside a cinema and a Tesco. XD

[@sotonric]

That's the Calshot Spit lightship. It's still in Southampton, but has been moved up the dock a little.

[@duel2edge]

There's a lightship in Hull that does tours.

There is a museum lightship in my hometown of Emden in northern Germany. Also the "Peking" is now in Hamburg germany as a museum :)

[@nolansdavid]

We used to have one in Swansea and there is still a rusty old one in the river at Neath.

[@snork_games]

those captions are ALMOST neccessary =P

[@TomScottGo]

0b01011110 I did a quick test beforehand, and without the captions, it's much more difficult to hear! Because you know roughly what to listen for, it's easier to separate the signal from the noise. The brain's a wonderful thing...

[@Gilgwathir]

***** Oh Tom that's why I love your channel. You always have such good reasoning behind most things. You just could have said "Oh well I figured it could be useful". The answer you gave is just way beyond what every normal person would think of. I like your very technical explanations behind everything. At the same time you mange to stay entertaining :-)

[@dontspikemydrink9382]

@@TomScottGo deaf people exist

[@flainYT]

i think australia has one of these? (HMS Carpentaria)

[@edwin4362]

I live right there and I have been on that shio! How have I not found this until now?

[@wingshad0w00982]

Amusing now there's another lightship in New York, at the frying pan restauraunt. On the other side of Manhattan, a lot further up the coast, but its thre.

[@jamez6398]

So they couldn't put foundations down to build the lighthouse on... but they can now? I had no idea that they could...

[@Jeagles]

There’s one of these in Harwich. They don’t use it any more and I think it’s a museum

[@justanotherglorpsdaymornin5097]

Well, time to add some lightships to our D&D world.

[@MySerpentine]

There are lightships in Sunless Sea, that's cool.

[@VIClER99]

There is one of those in East Yorkshire

[@StephenFonnesbeck]

I had no idea this existed. This is pretty cool.

[@Oliver-pi4wd]

Isn't there one in Cleethorpes

[@JohnKaz]

We also have one of these in the harbour of Antwerp if I'm not mistaken.

[@zperk13]

but what if the lightship can't find land

[@stavrospapadimitriou7631]

A sock over the microphone helps....

[@jongmassey]

You should have paid a visit to the Lightship John Sebastian when you were over in Bristol!

[@d999jMC]

This is nothing special. Here in Hamburg, Germany we also have one that isnt in use anymore.

[@StewartBroadcasting]

Hey Tom. Could you do another sci-short. I don't not what about but there great! :)

[@bronzedivision]

I did know this one, still a good video though. The Lightship SS Relief is docked near Jack London Square in Oakland CA and is open for tours. I highly recommend it to anyone on the other coast from this video.

[@devilsrfun]

Interesting... as always

[@JeremieThe]

There's one in Baltimore

[@EmdrGreg]

I did not know this. Wonderful!

[@zacmitchel92]

D.C. looks so cool at night.

[@nuneatontim]

As far as i know this is the sister lighthouse to Statue of Liberty

[@erictaylor5462]

Watch the video, "US Navy Ship vs the lighthouse" It's your call, mate. "USS Abraham Lincoln vs lighthouse" is very good.

[@padzilla8048]

Pretty sure thats fake

[@erictaylor5462]

I don't disagree, but I really REALLY want it to be true.

[@93lucid]

Theres one in Hull.

[@atahservices2840]

There is a floating lighthouse in hull

[@goedel.]

first biatches

[@owainglyndwr5936]

There's one of these in Cardiff

[@timdaking9724]

CI.

[@CaptainMorg13]

First

[@matilim2529]

theres one of those in portsmouth

[@fuiehfjfcnsl]

Ein Kommentar

[@Dampfish]

But wasn't the Statue of Liberty a lighthouse in the beginning? Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but Liberty Island is located slap-bang in the middle of the channel right? So why the need for a lightship, effectively making it two lighthouses there? Or were the lightships just used further out perhaps, where the "Liberty lighthouse" didn't reach?

[@dwarftoad]

The statue of liberty is close to the Hudson river and Manhattan, (here www.google.com/maps/place/Statue+of+Liberty+National+Monument/@40.6996905,-74.0076233,13z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0000000000000000:0x40c6a5770d25022b). This ship would have been in the Ambrose channel, past Staten Island in the bay, somewhere around here www.google.com/maps/place/40%C2%B028'58.7%22N+73%C2%B054'17.3%22W/@40.482977,-73.904798,12z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0

[@TomScottGo]

***** Spot on. However, I didn't have a lovely shot, complete with seagull in flight, from around there!

[@B0GlES]

heh! I love how British you sound when speaking to that other bloke!!

[@JoshuaClarkeOk]

first :)