Tag: lightship Frying Pan Shoals

Wikpedia says: In 1854, because of complaints from mariners that the height of the existing Bald Head Lighthouse was inadequate, and the light of its third-order Fresnel lens was not bright enough to warn mariners of the shallow waters of the treacherous Frying Pan Shoals off the coast of Cape Fear in North Carolina, United States, the first lightship was stationed on the shoals, in lieu of a proposal to improve Bald Point Lighthouse. The Bald Point lighthouse, and others, were turned off during the Civil War to avoid aiding the Northern ships. Lightships remained on station for 110 years.