Lightship Swiftsure (LV-83/WAL-508) (Seattle, Washington)

USA / Washington / Seattle / Seattle, Washington
 NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, historic landmark, lightship, museum ship
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Built in 1908 at the New York Shipbuilding Company of Camden, NJ for the US Lighthouse Service, Light Vessel 83 commissioned into USLHS service in late 1904 and was assigned for duty on the US West Coast. Reaching San Francisco in early 1905 following a trip around Cape Horn in South America, LV-83 took up station off Cape Mendocino marking Blunts Reef.

So stationed for the next 25 years, LV-83 was reassigned North to the San Francisco station, where she marked the sea lane approaches to the Golden Gate until the outbreak of the Second World War. By then part of the US Coast Guard following the merger of the UHLHS and USCG in 1938, the vessel was requisitioned by the US Navy as an Examination Vessel for San Francisco Harbor, and spent 1942-1945 as a patrol ship screening inbound and outbound ships from the major West Coast Port.

Returned to USCG custody in 1946 and resuming her station off the Golden Gate until 1951, LV-83 was transferred to the US Coast Guard's 13th district and began rotational duty at the Columbia River, Umatilla Reef, and Relief Lightship Stations for the next decade. Decommissioned from USCG service in 1961 and donated thereafter to the Northwest Seaport Museum, she began service as a museum ship with her RELIEF markings, which she would wear for another 35 years before a major overhaul was conducted in 1996. Emerging from the shipyard with a new coat of paint and wearing the markings of the Swiftsure station, LV-83 is under a complete topside and interior restoration project.

As the oldest Lightship on the West Coast and one of the oldest surviving Lightships in the United States, LV-83 was declared a National Historic Landmark, a Seattle Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

nwseaport.org/historic-fleet/lightship-swiftsure/
www.uscg.mil/history/weblightships/LV83.asp
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   47°37'41"N   122°20'11"W

Comments

  • Where did you get this info? Build date of 1908 is incorrect. It was built in 1904.
This article was last modified 11 years ago