The fate of Irish Lightships

More gems from the National Archives. On the 4th of October 1910 the Irish Lights Office (ILO) asked the Board of Trade (BoT) to agree to the purchase of 16 fire extinguishers for use on their light vessels, at a total cost of £54 (£4,500 in today’s money). Presumably therefore there were 16 light vessels being operated by the ILO in 1910. The letter, signed by Mr H. Cook, the ILO Secretary, was couched in charming, Victorian language (Photo).

Three officials at the BoT agreed to sanction this expenditure, but one awkward chap in F Dept stuck his oar in saying that the Trinity House lightships (about 60 of them) did not have these extinguishers and that, “ …having investigated the specifications for the Irish lightships, I see that it provides for water tanks and various pumps (including fire engine pump and hose) for flooding and washing. Should we not ask what provision is made at present and why it is considered inadequate?”

So, on 10 October, the BoT asked the ILO for details of existing provision and reasons why that provision was considered inadequate. On 4 November the ILO’s Mr Cook replied “I am directed to state, for the information of the Board of Trade, that the wood light vessels are fitted with portable 3” fire pumps of Messrs Stone’s manufacture, with hose long enough to reach any part of the vessel. In the steel, wood-sheathed and iron ships, in addition to the portable 3” fire pumps, there is in each vessel a 6” Stone’s pump of the Downton type with sea cock connection and hose, fire buckets also are borne in each vessel”.

Unfortunately Mr Cook did not elaborate on the second part of the BoT’s query (reasons why this provision was inadequate) and merely stated that the Commissioners considered that it would be advisable to supplement these appliances with a suitable patent Fire Extinguisher.

The BoT then sought ‘professional’ advice by asking a Capt Monro for his opinion. The good Captain thought the proposal ‘quite reasonable’, but then hedged his bets. (Photo).

The killjoy from F Dept then stuck in another oar saying there was no record of any fire on board a light vessel and recommended asking Trinity House for their opinion.

On 23 November Trinity House reported on the observations of the Elder Brethren (sic), saying that the provision on their light vessels was ‘regarded as sufficient for the purpose’ and went on to say that their appliances were practically the same as those on the Irish light vessels. Mr F Dept leapt in gleefully, saying that Trinity House had four times as many lightships as the ILO. I think he went rather over the top by suggesting that extra fire extinguishers were not needed as the Irish lightships were stationed near the coast and were provided with life boats‼ (Photo)
And so on 1 December 1910 the BoT informed the ILO the expenditure was not sanctioned. There it rested until two years later when the ILO had another go. On 7 August 1912 the new Secretary of the ILO, Mr J Philps, wrote “I am directed by the Commissioners of Irish Lights to state that they are convinced of the importance of furnishing lighthouses and lightships with efficient fire appliances…..”. Notice that lighthouses have crept in alongside lightships and the requested expenditure shot up to £278 (£19,000 today).
The Elder Brethren at Trinity House were again consulted and replied listing the provision of Chemical Fire Extinguishers at their 70 lighthouses – the list shows the name of the lighthouse; the number of extinguishers at each; and the location of each extinguisher (in the lamp room, the tower base, the dwelling or ‘other’). No lightships were listed and TH recommended that the ILO should state their reasons if they wanted provision on their lightships. However their letter concluded with the words “… should they consider further safeguards necessary on board their lightships, a portable Chemical Fire Extinguisher would perhaps best meet their needs”.
There seemed to be a softening of the BoT approach and the expenditure on the Irish lighthouses was approved, but F Dept was still muttering in the background against the lightships. On 5 October the ILO was again invited to state why they thought current provision was inadequate. On 8 October the ILO responded, but without any justification apart from saying they considered the supply of these fire extinguishers ‘absolutely necessary’. The reaction in the BoT was negative all the way up the food chain until the memos reached a Mr Robertson on 25 October. Swimming against the tide (Tide? What tide?) he merely opinoned that the request should be grants (Photo)
He must have been fairly senior as there was no more dissent, not even from F Dept, and the ILO were given sanction to spend the extra £40 :10s on 28 October 1912. Pity they did not go straight to Mr Robertson in October 1910.
David

It’s nice to see Simon making good progress and he certainly works hard enough in his ‘spare’ time. The story so far has shown the good bits and the bits that he has made good, but, even leaving aside the complete refurbishment of the cavernous areas below deck, there are a lot of bad bits which need to be addressed. These include the hull itself where the 136-year-old teak is showing its age. The massive beam which goes right round the edge of the ship (technical term please someone) has crumbled away in places – especially at the stern – and a previous owner has back filled it with concrete. This concrete is itself crumbling in places. I don’t know whether concrete is a recognised repair material, but I cannot think of any other way to fill a jagged hole easily. (Photo)

The ‘repairs’ go right around the stern and look quite fresh on the port side. (Photo)

Most of the sides of the hull look sound, but there are areas where close inspection and perhaps repairs are needed. The forward starboard area is a case in point (Photo)

As the vessel is floating higher than she was in her working days and will not (hopefully) be subjected to anything more than a gentle lifting and lowering on the tide, this may not be a problem. A good scrape and paint is indicated!

Wood rots and metal corrodes – especially when exposed to salty sea air and moisture. A temporary repair has been done on the lifeboat platform supports. Although the lifeboat and its davits have long since gone, the platform was definitely at risk. A more permanent repair will be effected. (Photo)

Finally, the old mizzen mast is doing a reasonable job keeping the ship off the mooring posts, but a gentler medium is needed. We found a neighbouring contractor about to dispose of some big dumper truck tyres, which will be ideal fenders. (Photo)

The only problem now is how to get them from N Wales to Kent‼
David

Fate continues to deal Simon some low blows. His Cherokee broke down (again) and this time it is terminal. It is very difficult to find a replacement vehicle without any transport to get around; while earning enough to keep the wolf from the door; while repairing the door; etc etc. Still, he remains cheerful. I am searching up here in N Wales, but of course that means getting any vehicle down to Kent if I succeed.

My trip to the Public Records Office in Belfast is now arranged. I am allowing two days to peruse their records of wireless traffic between the Harbour authorities and the Lady Dixon, plus the Masters’ log books of the ship from 1943 to 1956 – and anything else I can find!

Meanwhile the Devil finds work ……. I am on the track of a Diaphone fog-horn to replace the one missing from the ship. You will remember that it was shown on the 1943 blueprints I got from the National Archives (Photo).

Unfortunately it is proving difficult to get a decision from the owners. Only the ‘trumpet’ remains, but it would be a start. So meanwhile I have had a cunning plan.

Simon needs some sort of doorbell to alert him to visitors when he is working in the depths. So I have made use of a redundant speaker to provide a basis for a very appropriate alerting system.

First I gutted it, then made up a little circuit board (a kit of parts purchased from Germany) which required some delicate soldering. I also purchased a suitable little speaker, made a mounting board for it and installed a push-button to operate the device. (Photo).

The finished article looks very smart (Photo) and makes quite a good sound. I had to zip the mpv file, but try it if you can....
David

Just a couple of small items, finishing touches and odds and ends. The skylight has been finished off nicely on the outside with metal cladding (Photo).
The inside has been packed, plaster-boarded and plastered. It just remains to add a bit of paint and that’s another project finished (Photo).
The toughened, double-glazed glass came with integral venetian-type blind. I don’t think it functions when the glass is horizontal, but there is plenty of light coming through and on a hot summer’s day (we wish!) I think Simon will be glad it is not clear glass.

With a few hours to spare, Simon set about the entrance hatch to the forward companionway. This was very rusty and holed in places. Some time ago it was welded up and this week Simon stripped and painted it. It looks much better now, but shows up the door, which needs stripping and varnishing. (Photo)

So I am off to Belfast on Monday to see what the Public Records Office has to offer concerning the Lady Dixon from 1943 to 1956, when she was moored off Carrickfergus in the dual role of lightship and pilot station. Incidentally, I apologise for some careless writing in earlier blogs when I referred to Lady Dixon as the Harbour Master’s wife. The Cormorant was in fact renamed after a Harbour Commissioner’s wife - most probably Lady Edith Dixon, married to Sir Thomas James Dixon, whose names were given to one of Belfast’s best-known parks in 1959. Alternatively, the vessel may have been named after Sir Thomas’s mother, Lady Eliza.
David

To help the Belfast Harbour Commissioners come to a decision about buying Cormorant from Dublin, the surveyors they sent down to examine the ship were Messrs James Maxton & Co. Google told me they are still in business and, more in hope than expectation, I sent off an e-mail asking if they have any records of the survey. The reply was swift but disappointing – their offices were destroyed in a WWII blitz. The firm was also tasked to produce ‘an outline specification and drawing of the adaptions which would be necessary to make the vessel suitable for the pilotage service’. The blueprints from which I obtained copies must have been drawn up from those Maxton documents and they are labelled ‘Liffey Dockyard’, where the work was done. Maxtons were also paid ‘200 guineas’ to supervise the work. You may remember the correspondence I found back in October, which debated what allowances the surveyors should receive for travelling from Belfast to Dublin. Those were the Maxton surveyors and they received only ‘normal’ expenses as Dublin was not considered to be ‘abroad’!


Another little nugget from the minutes enabled me to plot the location of the Lady Dixon during her time on station in Belfast Lough. All I knew before my visit was that she was stationed ‘off Carrickfergus’ and to me that meant a few hundred yards from shore, warning ships off the Carrickfergus rocks. The only photo we had of the ship on station was taken in the 1950s by Wil Smith (New Zealand) and showed a rather distant shoreline (Photo).



I thought perhaps the photo had been taken from the Carrickfergus shore. However, in the minutes of June 1942, where the purchase of a lightship was discussed, it was stated that it would be stationed in Belfast Lough ‘mid-way between No1 Buoy, Victoria Channel, and Grey Point’.

Well assuming that the location of No1 Buoy has not changed much – 1.5 miles SE of Carrickfergus – and Grey Point is easily found on local maps, it has been possible to estimate (note the word!) where Lady Dixon was moored, and it is right across on the south side of the Lough (Photo), which explains the photo.

All this was of course very exciting (am I turning into a nerd?) but there was more to come.


I continued my trawl through the library of the Belfast Harbour Commissioners, having found plenty of interesting nuggets in the early minute books. In September 1943 “The Chairman intimated that, in accordance with the wishes of the Board, he had asked Lady Dixon, D.B.E., J.P., wife of their esteemed colleague, The Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas J. Dixon, Bart., H.M.L., if she would consent to the pilot lightship “Cormorant” (which name the Board desired to alter) being named after her, and that Lady Dixon had kindly consented”. Well that settled my question as to whether the ship was named after Sir Thomas’ wife or mother. It was resolved “That the pilot lightship be named “Lady Dixon”, and that the grateful thanks of the Commissioners be conveyed to Lady Dixon for the honour which she has conferred upon them by allowing the vessel to bear her name”. Isn’t the language lovely? This is of course the period when the Master of the lightship, Mr A.P. Kennedy, did not know what name to write in the headings of his log pages!

Things soon became rather routine and repetitive in the Minutes, as they had in the Log Books and not wishing to take undue advantage of the Commissioners’ generosity, I kept the free photocopying down to a minimum and made extensive notes. These tell me that in January 1955, the ship’s repair bills were mounting – well she was 83 years old by this time. Her regular overhaul cost a total of £1,760 (over £57,000 today) although this did include examination and renewal of her mooring. This did not include ‘repairs to the Aga and Esse cookers, the Pilots’ Mess Room heater, any repairs needed underneath, nor the repairs to the boarding platform damaged on 8 December 1954 in a gale’. The last entry in the last Log Book available was on 14 September 1956, but the Minutes continued and included a commendation from the Commissioners to the pilots and crew of the Lady Dixon for the rescue of three occupants of a small yacht which capsized in Belfast Lough on 7 September 1958. The end was fast approaching, but I will deal with that next time.

The final nugget I found before I left the Commissioners was a big one. There were several photograph albums on the shelves and in one I struck real gold! Up until then, the only photograph we had of Lady Dixon was Wil Smith’s. In one of the albums I found not one, but three photographs of the ship taken on 21 May 1957. Any doubts I may have had about Wil’s photo being of the Lady Dixon were dispelled because the name is clearly visible on two of the photographs and the planking of the ‘boarding platform’ at the stern can be seen. This platform had caused me doubts because it made the stern look very rectangular – not at all like the ship as she is now (and was underneath the platform). (Photos)
David

By the end of the 1950s, Lady Dixon’s time in Belfast was coming to an end (the ship, not the Commissioner’s wife!). The Minutes reveal (Nov 1959) that “… the Harbour Master had reported that parts of the upper works of the pilot light vessel Lady Dixon, (which is not due for triennial survey until February, 1961) were in a poor state, and that, as it was possible that some of the underparts of the vessel were in similar condition, he had suggested that a thorough inspection of the vessel on station be made by a competent wooden ship surveyor….”. A report from the Harbour Engineer subsequently reported “…. a certain amount of deterioration of the decking and a small leak on the starboard quarter; any detailed examination of the vessel would necessitate the removal of a considerable amount of panelling and decking, and suggesting, in the circumstances, that the vessel be dry-docked as soon as is reasonably practicable for the purpose of survey …..”. It got worse! In February 1960 the vessel was withdrawn from station and a preliminary survey reported that “The work immediately necessary to make the vessel serviceable for a period of 12 months, i.e., until she is due for triennial survey and overhaul …” was estimated to cost £3,000 (£58,000 today) and take 3 months. The overhaul and work necessary to make the vessel serviceable for a further 3 years would cost at least £20,000 (£390,000 today) and take 4/6 months.
These costs obviously caused concern and discussions began about whether the pilotage service could be run from a shore station at Carrickfergus (which would require the building of a landing stage and the purchase of two fast motor vessels). After much discussion and detailed estimates of the various options, it was decided (8 March 1960) that Lady Dixon would not be repaired. There was even a suggestion at one stage that the vessel be beached at Carrickfergus to provide accommodation for the pilots, but a building ashore became available.
The final mention was in the minutes of 29 November 1960 when it was agreed that the vessel would be disposed of. She was advertised in, of all publications, the ‘Yachting World’ and in February 1961 a Belfast businessman, Mr G.A.Lee offered £185 (£2,800 today). This offer was declined, but when he raised it to £685 (£10,600 today) later that month, his offer was accepted. That was the end of Lady Dixon’s period in Belfast and within about 12 months she was on her way to a new career as a Pirate Radio Station – which, as we have seen, never got off the ground/water.

Meanwhile, back down on the Medway, Simon is pressing on with the refurbishment. The quaint old stove which he purchased to provide heat downstairs, sorry below deck, (Photo) came up very well with a lot of elbow grease (Photo).

The curly silvery trimmings top and bottom and the ash-catcher lids on the sides, are showing their age and no amount of rubbing is going to disguise the corrosion, but he does not want to paint them (Photo).

The next big job is tiling the kitchen floor. This involves a membrane which has to be glued to the deck; then the tiles are glued to the membrane. He has the membrane cut to size and ready to glue (Photo), so the tiles should be down this week. After that, now that drier weather is on offer, the main deck will be insulated.

There remains the question of what to do with the old skylight from the kitchen roof, which is in better condition than it looks (Photo). Simon is thinking of using it to replace the forward companionway doors, which are not in good shape. One of those port-holes in each door will look good.
David

Some time ago Simon bought himself a canoe, but unfortunately it was holed in a storm – sounds romantic but actually it was tied down on the roof of the superstructure and something fell on it! Anyway, it is now repaired and this excellent weather has tempted Simon to christen it and take some photos of the hull from sea level. The hull was constructed with two layers of teak planking and covered by a sheet of ‘yellow metal’. This was Muntz metal - a form of alpha-beta brass with about 60% copper, 40% zinc and a trace of iron. It is named after George Frederick Muntz, a metal-roller of Birmingham, England who commercialised the alloy following his patent of 1832. Its original application was as a replacement for copper sheathing on the bottom of boats, as it maintained the anti-fouling abilities of the pure copper at around two thirds of the price. It became the material of choice for this application and Muntz made his fortune.
A notable use of Muntz Metal was in the hull of the Cutty Sark and I believe that only three vessels still exist which have the teak planks on iron frame with Muntz cladding construction – Cutty Sark, Simon’s lightship and one other.
Simon’s canoe-based survey showed that, in places, the Muntz is crumbling at the edges (aren’t we all?). (Photo). There is a definite limiting line just above water level – which would make sense.

In places the Muntz is in good shape (Photo) and in others it looks like a patchwork quilt – or a piece of modern art! (Photo)


On a more serious note, there are areas of the hull that are in need of some serious TLC. (Photo) Thank goodness these are well above the waterline, but will need to be done nonetheless.

Some areas look fine, although still needing work.(Photo)
David

Just a quick post to let you know that things will be quiet for a couple of weeks. I am off to Spain in the old car for a touring holiday with some fellow enthusiasts. Simon is away too, on a jaunt of his own.

One thing to report – the demise of the old Rayburn stove. Dismantling revealed a hopeless mess inside, with many bits missing and really bad corrosion. It is too heavy and cumbersome to keep for old time’s sake. (Photo)

So it is out with the old and in with the new – well perhaps not so new as Simon likes retro (Photo). This is for heating, not cooking!

So, until the middle of June, it’s goodbye from me and it’s goodbye from him!

David

Fate deals some cruel blows to amateur researchers. As I reported earlier, the offices of the ship surveyors who examined the Cormorant in 1942 were bombed a short time later and bang went a lot of useful records (literally!). Now I find that the Public Records Office in Dublin was destroyed during the Battle of Dublin in 1922. I was hoping to find some information about her time with the Commissioners for Irish Lights (from 1878 to 1942). I did find a book by Herbert Wood B.A. (Oxon) M.R.L.A. who catalogued what was in the building in 1919. From the headings and department names I surmise that there was little if anything about lightships, but there were some weird and wonderful titles:-

Cursitors Office

Recognizance Office

Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper

Lunacy Office

Register of Appeals or Provocations Spiritual

Palatinate of Tipperary (honestly!)

Registers of Irregular Marriages

The Liberty of Saint Sepulchre



The Oxford Dictionary was of little help in deciphering most of these!

Nothing to do with lightships I know, but fascinating.

David

LV72 is indeed a sad sight. When the tide rises - she doesn't! The deck is awash at each high tide.
I have been in touch with the owner (a scrap metal dealer) who bought it 30 or so years ago to scrap, used it as an office for a while and then abandoned it. I was hoping to 'rescue' one or two bits from it for Cormorant.
This is a very different looking ship from how she looked in WWII. Like Cormorant she has been converted from a lamp going up and down a mast, to a permanent fixed lamp on a new superstructure. For this reason and the fact that she is obviously holed and full of silt and very rusty, I very much doubt whether any preservation body would be interested in her. Hope springs eternal in the owner's breast, but I think she will eventually be scrapped.
Among my vintage car friends I see many old wrecks (cars!) that sit waiting for a restoration that never comes - and then it is too late!

Thank you Pedro. I will certainly try Lloyds List and a few newspapers around that time.
Thanks also for the 'translations' of those peculiar titles!
David