Lightship Ambrose

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Career
Lightship Ambrose (WLV 613)
Launched:	August 4, 1952

Commissioned:	September 12, 1952

Decommissioned:	December 20, 1983

Fate:	Museum ship

General characteristics
Displacement:	130 tons

Length:	128 ft (42 m)

Beam:	30 ft (10 m)

Draft:	11 (3.3 m)

Propulsion:	Detroit - Quad, 550 Hp

Speed:	9 knots (17 km/h)

Lightship Ambrose served as the sentinel beacon marking Ambrose Channel, the main shipping channel for New York Harbor, from 1823 until the station was replaced by Ambrose Lightstation, a Texas Tower, in 1967. Between 1823 and 1967, several ships were commissioned Lightship Ambrose and served at the station.

The Lightship Ambrose (LV87), built 1908, served her station until 1933 when she was reassigned to serve as the Lightship Scotland, a station much closer to Sandy Hook, New Jersey. In 1968, the United States Coast Guard donated the ship to the South Street Seaport Museum in New York City where she remains berthed and can be visited by the public.

In 1952, the Lightship Ambrose (WLV 613) was commissioned and became the last lightship to mark the Ambrose Channel when she was replaced by a Texas Tower lightstation on August 24, 1967. She was reassigned as a relief ship on the Massachusetts coastline from 1967–75. And finally, after being renamed Nantucket II, she was reassigned to Nantucket Shoals, where she alternated with her sister ship, the Lightship Nantucket (WLV 612), relieving each other approximately every 21 days, until 1983. This vessel is now a museum ship in Boston Harbor.

LV 87 is now owned by South Street Seaport Museum in Lower Manhattan, and moored at Pier 16 on the East River and is scheduled to undergo further restoration in 2007.