Relief Lightship WAL-505 (1/4)

Shipwreck Relief - Lightship WAL-505
Type:
shipwreck, lightship, USCG
Name:
Named for its job - as the "relief ship" for the other regular lightships along the eastern seaboard.
Built:
1904, New York Shipbuilding, Camden NJ USA
Specs:
( 129 x 28 ft ) 631 gross tons, 9 crew
Sunk:
Friday June 24, 1960
collision with freighter Green Bay - no casualties
GPS:
40°27.144' -73°49.070' (AWOIS 2003)
Depth:
105 ft, main deck at 90


compass

The lightship is intact and upright, with the masts knocked down. This wreck is interesting because before you dive it, you can tour her near-identical twin, the Ambrose, at the South Street Seaport. And that's probably not a bad idea - the viz here can be deplorable.

The wreck is heavily overgrown with mussels and other marine life. Large skylights that once illuminated the interior have long since collapsed, and

shipwreck Relief - Lightship WAL-505

the wreck is easily penetrated through the resulting holes in the deck, although the interior is quite silty. After forty years of being picked over, you would have to be very lucky to find good artifacts anyway. A better place to look inside is the large gash on the starboard side near the "L" in the picture, the result of the collision that sank her. Searching around inside the edges of this hole might even produce a lobster. The bottom is mud and silt - pretty nasty.

The wreck of the pilot boat Sandy Hook is not more than a mile away.

Shipwreck Relief - Lightship WAL-505
Under construction, Camden NJ 1904
Shipwreck Relief - Lightship WAL-505
Shipwreck Relief - Lightship WAL-505
Views forward and aft from the top of the fore-mast
Shipwreck Relief - Lightship WAL-505
One of the massive light masts, some 50 ft long and several tons, once a rusting eyesore off Route 35 in Laurence Harbor. Recovered in the 1970s, it once stood in front of a now-defunct dive shop called "Diver's Cove". The mast was finally removed in 2007.
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copper penny

Copper, brass, and bronze are all relatively immune to saltwater corrosion. Brass artifacts of all sorts are easily cleaned up into shiny souvenirs for those who value them. Bright green copper sheets and tubes add color to many wrecks, while bronze is the material of choice for the most coveted of all diver's artifacts - a ship's bell.

Copper and some of its alloys have been used by humanity since the Bronze Age. One of the first metals known to humans, free copper was probably mined in the Tigris-Euphrates valley as long ago as the 5th century BC. Cyprus, from which the metal's name originally comes, was the primary source of copper in the ancient world.

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