Fifteen yee and fifteen strong,
We’re loading her up for the tour!
The waves will be rough, and the storms’ll be tough –
And we’re bringing our comrades to shore!
Ale in your case – get your bottles aboard,
Tip your hat to the skip on the way.
For the coast of Cape Fear and her Frying Pan Shoals –
Yes, we set out for sailing today!
Light Years
Since the late 1800s, vessels known as lightships had been used to guide other ships around harbor entrances and dangerous shoals or shallow sandbars (shallow bits of land formed by sand collected just underneath the surface of the water). Oftentimes lighthouses could not provide the needed guidance or illuminated reach, so these ships, equipped with lights atop tall masts, foghorns and large bells, would do the job.
In 1929, there was just another lightship getting built in Charleston, South Carolina for the U.S. Coast Guard. A boat construction company known as Charleston Drydock and Machine Co. crafted the ship, and named it Lightship No. 115 (must’ve been a long meeting);
“She’s done and worthy, chief.”
“She? What’s her name?”
“Well, hell – I’m not quite sure chief.”
“Well what did we call the last one?”
“114?”
“Well carry the 1 already – and get on with it!”
115 had a steel hull, steel deckhouse and two thirty-foot high masts with lights atop. It was also diesel/electric propelled and measured 133 feet and 3 inches long. The construction cost $274,434 (more than $3.6 million smackaroos today).
In short time, she’d come to be known as “The Frying Pan” when she replaced an older lightship guarding the Frying Pan Shoals just off the coast of Cape Fear, North Carolina in 1930. A crew of 15 men served aboard the ship for three months at a time followed by two months of shore leave, whereas other crewmen would, ...
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