Volume Eight - Pre-Victorian to the present day - more aspects - A brief history of Trinity House lightvessels . .

Where did the Light Vessels go?

At the end of the useful life of a light vessel it often finds its way to the breakers yard and gets recycled into tin cans! No. 72 lightvessel is one such vessel. She was built at a Wearside shipyard near Sunderland in 1903 and marked the English & Welsh Grounds off Avonmouth during her life serving the mariner and Trinity House. She arrived for breaking up at Neath Abbey in May 1973 according to Bernard McCall in his book 'Coasters of South Wales' [187] who also states that 'her main claim to fame was her role in marking the approaches to Mulberry Harbour at the Juno Beach landings during the D-Day invasions.'

	Many lightvessels like No. 72 (left) ended up at the breakers yard. However, I was informed that No. 72 was still very much there in 2015.
	One lightship which is moored and preserved close-by the site of the Penarth Dock is lightvessel No. 14 which was in service from 1953 until 1988 and is now a church ship in Cardiff Bay and carries the name of her former location at the 'Helwick' sands. Alas, in 2015 she was moved to a new site.
	A lightship which carries the 'Helwick' name for posterity is lightvessel No. 91 at present moored beside the National Waterfront Museum at South Dock, Swansea. Yet another was a feature of the 'Sentinel of the Sands' - a Senior Service brand cigarette card dating from the mid to late 1930's.