Historic Lightship

Once this boat played a crucial role to maritime safety in the Solent.
Now, the former Trinity House lightship is a museum piece within the port at Southampton.
Its role, anchored off the Clshot Spit had been to provide a warning to shipping moving in and out of Southampton Water of the presence of a land spit which extends some way into the entrance of the waterway used by the world’s biggest ships.
For several years after it was decommissioned, the lightship was preserved in the city’s Ocean Village where it was set in concrete. But in 2010 it was moved to its present home in the Trafalgar Dock for renovation and potentially as part of a maritime museum on the waterfront.

Today a floating buoy with a warning beam of light provides the same navigation aid off Calshot.