The first paragraph from the Forward describes best the contents of the paper:
"This document tells the story of the saving of the Lightship Overfalls (LV-118) by the Overfalls Foundation. The main emphasis is on the activity in the years 2006-2010. Given that the period prior to those years was significant, information related to the earlier period is included with enough detail to set the story in context."
Willard Flint was a maritime historian for the U.S. Coast Guard and is still considered the preeminent expert on U.S. lightships. Mr. Flint published Lightships and Lightship Stations of the U.S. Government in 1986 and published a revised addition two years later. Mainly this is a reference document in two separate sections: one with factual information about each lightship in a standard two page format, and the other with a similar format for each lightship station. In the front of the book is this excellent overview of lightships and their evolution in the United States. (click here)
Prepared September 15, 2009. (7.5 meg pdf file) (click here)
James P Delgado, Maritime Historian, June 1989.
Lightships were essential partners with America's lighthouses as part of the federal government's commitment to safe navigation on the nation's coasts and on the Great Lakes. While the first American lighthouse dates to the colonial era, the use of lightships is a more recent 19th century phenomenon in the United States, though employed earlier in Europe. Moored over treacherous reefs, or marking the narrow approaches to a channel or harbor entrance where lighthouses could not be built or placed in areas too far offshore for a shoreside lighthouse's lens to reach, lightships were fewer in number than the estimated 1,500 lighthouses built in the United States. In all, 179 lightships were built between 1820 and the 1952. In 1909, the heyday of the United States Lighthouse Service, there were 51 lightships (46 on the eastern seaboard and five on the Pacific Coast) on station in the United States. (click here)
For Overfalls Foundation staff providing tours for ship visitors. Updated October, 2010. (click here)