Nantucket Lightship

Dimensions: 

2 ⅜” x 1 ¼” x 1 ¼”

All ships are made by hand in Uruguay and enter through the neck of the bottle. If you’re curious about how they get in there, keep on reading!

Traditionally, ships in bottles were made using drawstrings that allowed a ship that was created outside of a bottle and flattened through the use of hinges to be re-erected once inside the bottle by pulling the strings. Our ships are created by hand using a technique that requires even more skill and precision. The model is first built and completely finished outside of the bottle. Then, each mast, including sails and all, is removed again. The hull is then inserted into the bottle, and each mast is individually added and glued into place. This technique makes it possible to reproduce fine details because pressure on the rig is minimal and more delicate materials can be used. It also allows the hull and superstructure to be larger because they are able to take up the entire diameter of the bottle neck (as opposed to the drawstring method where the entire ship has to fit through while folded).

Nantucket Lightship

United States lightship Nantucket (LV-112) is a National Historic Landmark lightship that served at the Lightship Nantucket position. She was the last serving lightship and at time of its application as a landmark, one of only two capable of moving under their own power. She served as the lightship for such notable vessels as the liners United States, Queen Mary, and Normandie.

The ship was officially designated Light Vessel No. 112 or LV-112 to permanently identify the vessel as the practice was to paint the name of the marked hazard or station on the vessels that often occupied multiple stations. LV-112 was built to replace LV-117 which had been sunk in a collision while assigned to Nantucket Shoals with special safety features and was the largest light vessel ever built. The vessel was somewhat unusual in being only at the Nantucket station except for the war years of 1942-1945 and 1958-1960 when assigned as the relief vessel for the 1st District during which several stations were occupied relieving other vessels.