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THE ASTORIAN • SATuRdAy, MARcH 13, 2021
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Nate Sandel
The Lightship Columbia floating outside of the Columbia River Maritime Museum.
The Columbia’s ‘floating lighthouses’
By JULIA TRIEZENBERG
For The Astorian
F
Nate Sandel
One of the foghorns that blasted every 30 seconds on the river in poor visibility on the Lightship Columbia.
Columbia River Maritime Museum
An image of two crew members cleaning the deck of the Lightship Columbia.
rom 1892 to 1979, five different lightships guided
vessels to the mouth of the Columbia River. These
“floating lighthouses” served as a navigational aid
for ships where it wasn’t practical to build a standing
lighthouse.
Lightship No. 50 was the first on the North Coast,
about 4.5 miles off of Cape Disappointment. Eventually,
it was moved just over 5 miles southwest of the South
Jetty in Oregon to mark the entrance to the Columbia.
Over the years, Lightship No. 67, No. 88 and No. 93
also served on the river. The longstanding testament to
the history of these vessels on the river is United States
Lightship Columbia WLV 604, which floats just outside
of the Columbia River Maritime Museum near the Asto-
ria Riverwalk. The ship is the museum’s largest artifact.
The Lightship Columbia began guiding ships to the
mouth of the river in 1951. Her primary illumination
was through a hearty lineup of 24 locomotive lights that
rotated around her masts. It’s said that the glow from
these lights could be seen up to 20 miles away.
When conditions were too foggy for the lights them-
selves, the Lightship Columbia relied on its foghorns.
The lightship’s foghorns were unique and set it apart
from the calls of other ships. The foghorn made a 3 sec-
ond blast that was repeated every 30 seconds and could
be heard up to 5 miles away.
The crew of the lightship got so used to hearing these
horns go off that it actually changed the way they spoke.
Crew members would pause in the middle of their sen-
tences to make sure the foghorns didn’t drown out what
they were trying to say. After the foghorns were shut
off, it was sometimes strange to be able to talk normally
again.
In the first few years of the lightship’s time on the
river, crew members were on for eight weeks and given
shore leave for four weeks. Over its career, those win-
dows of time shrank until the final rotations amounted
to 28 days on and 14 days off the lightship. When the
U.S. Coast Guard buoy tender arrived to take the men
off the ship, they were eager to get to shore.
Crew members had a strict routine to maintain the
ship’s lights and foghorns, as well as watch for other
vessels in distress — but they also had a lot of free time
on their hands outside of their daily chores and they had
to find ways to keep themselves occupied.
They’d spend their time fishing, playing cards or
watching movies — and eventually TV, although the
connection was spotty at best. Going back to Astoria
was an opportunity to reconnect with a more varied life
on land.
Eventually, navigational technology advanced to the
point that there wasn’t a need for lightships anymore.
Fully-automated buoys equipped with fog signals and
radio beacons were more cost-effective than a ship with
an entire crew of men. They began to take the light-
ships’ place.
The Lightship Columbia was officially retired in
1979. She was the last active lightship on the West
Coast.
Julia Triezenberg is an educator at the columbia
River Maritime Museum.