Local man saves Nantucket's lightship

AMESBURY — She once rose and fell with the pitching tides 100 miles offshore off the perilous Nantucket Shoals — a lightship built to mark the United States' shipping lanes and endure the harshest conditions of any American post.

The fortress of a ship was the welcome first sight of land, heralding the end of a long seafaring journey for countless navigators from 1936 to 1975. And yet, if it weren't for South Hampton's Robert Mannino, who recently purchased her for $1 and saved her from a certain trip to the scrap heap, the Nantucket Lightship's gallant form and heroic past deeds may have been lost to history.

For Mannino, who just last week towed the lightship back to its home port of Boston from Oyster Bay, N.Y., making the Nantucket Lightship relevant again has been his life's purpose since learning of its plight in 2008.

"It was in danger of being scrapped," said Mannino. "Someone had purchased the lightship from another group with the hope of establishing a Maritime Museum at Staten Island, N.Y. The project stalled out — it just never materialized."

For eight long years the ship that rescued stranded sailors, forged through hurricanes and patrolled the coast for German U-boats in World War II sat with the barest minimum of upkeep in Oyster Bay. It took $125,000 in repairs just to make it seaworthy enough to get it back to Boston's Charlestown Navy Yard.

Now Mannino is hoping to raise enough money to bring the aging beauty back to her former glory so it can tour the New England coast and familiarize future generations with her place in local maritime history.

For nearly 40 years, the ship known as Nantucket Lightship LV-112 operated out of the U.S. Coast Guard First District headquarters in Boston. It was stationed nearly 100 miles off the U.S. mainland, serving as a floating lighthouse to guide transoceanic ships through the shipping lanes into the New York and New England seaports, past the notoriously treacherous Nantucket Shoals.

Sidelined for a brief period during World War II because the ship couldn't be protected from German torpedoes so far out at sea, it was involved in some very famous merchant wrecks and rescues.

"It was converted to an examination vessel (between 1943-45)," said Mannino. "It was stationed outside of Portland, Maine, harbor, and its purpose was to keep an eye out for enemy subs off our coast."

During the time when it was patrolling the coast, a German submarine sank the naval vessel Eagle 56 in Portland Harbor, and the Nantucket Lightship swept in to rescue a number of the Eagle's sailors. The German sub escaped to sink another ship on its way to Rhode Island, where it was eventually sunk by the U.S. Navy.

When the war was over the lightship went back to her post out at sea, where she kept vigil until her decommissioning in 1975. Serving on the Nantucket was considered the most difficult duty in the Coast Guard.

"Out there it got to be rough," said Mannino. "During Hurricane Edna in 1954, the ship was in 70-foot seas with 110 mph winds. It was extremely dangerous duty for sailors to be on the ship."

Since enormous steamships used the lightship as a guiding light into port, they would often aim straight for the Nantucket, veering only at the last minute to be sure they were heading in the right direction.

"They were always at risk of being rammed by other ships," said Mannino, who recalled the fate of Nantucket LV-112's predecessor.

"The reason this was built is because its predecessor — another Nantucket lightship — was rammed and sunk by an ocean liner, the Olympic, which was the sister ship to the Titanic," said Mannino. "Nothing happened to the ocean liner, but it cut the lightship in half and sank it and seven crewmen died on the lightship."

Ship's cook Bob Gubitosi was just 17 years old when he was stationed aboard the Nantucket, and recalls it was a life-altering event.

"I went aboard Light Vessel #112 on a foggy day in 1957," he recalled. "I was 17 years old and saw this big red ship with 'Nantucket' painted on it anchored in the calm sea belching out the most ear-piercing foghorn I have ever heard. I think it was then that I realized that my life was about to change."

He remembers vividly the unearthly loud bellow of the ship's horn sounding most of time due to the foggy conditions at the shoals. He served on the 112 until 1961.

"I could not get a transfer and had four different skippers during my tour. There were many storms and hurricanes. One scary night was in, I believe 1958, when we broke our anchor chain and did not know it. We wound up off the coast of New Jersey the next day with our radio beacon still going. I remember going on the bridge that night and watching the ship through the porthole going up walls of water that looked like five- to 10-story buildings high, then taking a nose dive straight down."

He recalled, as well, more pleasurable times on the ship — calm, summer days when the fog horn fell silent, watching the aurora borealis and the sea life and fishing with ship mates. That's the kind of smooth sailing the Nantucket will have from here on in, thanks to Mannino and a group of volunteers and donors vested in her future.

"Our ultimate goal is to restore the ship back to when it was an operating, running vessel," said Mannino, recalling how a group that once owned it would tour it around the Eastern Seaboard. To get it into that kind of shape it will cost about $850,000, which Mannino is hoping to get through donations. He'll open it up by appointment until that time, and dream about getting her seaworthy again.

"Back in the late '80s or 1990 this ship was in Newburyport," said Mannino. "It was tied up at the town dock there for people to visit it. We'd like to take it up to Newburyport, Gloucester, maybe up to Maine and around the New England ports."

For more information on ongoing efforts to renovate the Nantucket Lightship go to http://www.nantucketlightshiplv-112.org/index.htm.

Local News

Search Results

Related Photos

Discussion

Site Map

Contact Us