United States Lightship Chesapeake (LV-116)

United States Lightship Chesapeake (LV-116)

United States lightship Chesapeake (LV-116/WAL-538/WLV-538) is owned by the National Park Service and on a 25-year loan to the Baltimore Maritime Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. Since 1820, several lightships have served at the Chesapeake lightship station and have been called Chesapeake. It was common for a lightship to be reassigned from one Lightship Station to another and thus "renamed" and identified by its new station name. Even though the "name" changed during a Lightship's service life, the hull number never changed. The United States Coast Guard assigned new hull numbers to all lightships still in service in April 1950. After that date, Light Ship / Light Vessel 116 was then known by the new Coast Guard Hull number: WAL-538. In January 1965 the Coast Guard further modified all lightship hull designations from WAL to WLV, so Chesapeake became WLV-538.

Chesapeake had many redundant systems in order to maintain her position through most storms. The 5,000 pounds (2,300 kg) main anchor was backed up by a second 5000 pound anchor attached to the side of the ship. The 30,000 candela main light was also backed up with a secondary lamp and the Radio Locator Beacon also had a backup system. On more than one occasion (in 1933, 1936, and 1962) the main anchor chain snapped during violent storms and the ship had to use her engines to stay in place and drop her second anchor.