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The Nantucket Lightship will be a Floating Exhibit Greeted by a show of community enthusiasm and welcomed by the Selectmen and officers of the Nantucket Historical Association, the veteran lightship Nantucket came around Brant Point shortly after noonday on December 7, and was moored at a temporary berth on the south side of Steamboat wharf a few days later. The coming of the vessel to the port for which she was named was the result of careful planning by the Town and the Historical Association, and was made possible by the determined ef forts of a group of local men who brought her here from East Boston. The story of the eventual arrival of the lightship in Nantucket began last March, when word came that the older of two lightships that guarded Nantucket shoals was to be decommissioned. Of the once sixty lightships which were stationed along the east and west coasts, Nantucket Shoals is the last manned lightship, all the others having been replaced by huge buoys. On March 21 the Nantucket was officially decommissioned by the U.S. Coast Guard, and her former post on the exposed South Shoals station was taken by a newer craft, formerly guarding the Portland, Maine, area. The older vessel was then turned over to the General Services Ad ministration. A few days after this ceremony it was learned that at an auction sale the Nantucket had been purchased by the New Jersey Labor Department, and was to be taken to Atlantic City. The announcement led to a burst of activity on the part of the Selectmen and the Historical Association. After extensive discussion it was determined that the Nantucket belonged in Nantucket; the New Jersey group was approached and a deal was arranged whereby an exchange was effected — the delivery of the old Boston Lightship to Atlantic City in place of the Nantucket. To accomplish this a company of islanders volunteered to go to Boston and take the other lightship — the Boston — to Atlantic City. Led by Captain Mitchell (Mike) Todd this company succeeded in their enterprise, and included: Thomas "Les" Eldridge, Arthur "Pete" Grant, Kenneth Holdgate, Anthony Docca, Richard Mack, Dr. Roy Stuart, Dennis Dias, Jr., Robert Allen, Jeffrey Marks, Richard Hardy and Daniel Kelliher. It was during this voyage that there was a close brush with disaster when, during a heavy fog off Block Island, the lightship was side-swiped by a Liberian freighter, striking a glancing blow at the stern. Having her steering gear damaged, the lightship put back into Jamestown, R. I., where the Nantucket mechanics restored the apparatus and the voyage continued, arriving at Atlantic City without further incident. In itself, this was an unusual achievement.
