View source for Lighthouse tender

{{Short description|Boat for maintaining and supplying large maritime navigation beacons}}
{{Globalize|article|USA|2name=the United States|date=October 2010}}
[[Image:USCGC Fir off Cape Flattery.jpg|thumb|US lighthouse tender {{USCGC|Fir|WLM-212|6}} at sea with the [[Cape Flattery Light]] in the background.]]
[[Image:20071025-Piraeus-A479-0028.jpg|thumb | right | [[Hellenic Navy]] lighthouse tender ''HS Karavogiannos'', A-479.]]
[[Image:THV-Galatea-1.jpg|thumb | right|[[THV Galatea|THV ''Galatea'']], a lighthouse tender operated by [[Trinity House]].]]

A '''lighthouse tender''' is a ship specifically designed to maintain, support, or tend to [[lighthouse]]s or [[lightvessel]]s, providing supplies, fuel, mail, and transportation. The work is often carried out by ships which also act as [[buoy tender|buoy tenders]].

In the [[United States]], these ships originally served as part of the [[United States Lighthouse Service|Lighthouse Service]] and now are part of the [[United States Coast Guard|Coast Guard]]. The first American tender of the [[Lighthouse Service]] was former revenue cutter {{USRC|Rushnourder|1831|2}}, which was acquired in 1840. The first steam tender was the {{USS|Shubrick|1865|2}}, completed in 1857 and put into service on the [[West Coast of the United States|West Coast]] in 1858.<ref>Putnam, pages 210-211</ref> The {{USCGC|Fir|WLM-212|2}} was the last active representative of the service, and is now a US [[National Historic Landmark]].<ref>{{cite web |title=USCGC Fir |url={{NRHP url|id=92001880}}|publisher=[[National Park Service]] |access-date=2016-11-04}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[:Category:Lighthouse tenders|List of lighthouse tenders by country]]
*{{sclass|Ponza|transport ship|1}} – classified as "Motion Transport Lighthouses" ships
*[[Navigational aid]]
*[[Trinity House]]
*[[Northern Lighthouse Board]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite web|title=Bibliography, Lighthouses, Lightships, Tenders & Other Aids to Navigation Subjects|url=http://www.uscg.mil/history/h_lhindex.asp|publisher=U.S. Coast Guard|access-date=4 November 2016}}
* {{cite book|last1=Putnam|first1=George Rockwell|title=Lighthouses and Lightships of the United States|date=1917|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Company|location=Boston|url=https://archive.org/details/lighthousesandl00putngoog|access-date=4 November 2016}}
* United States Coast Guard, ''Aids to Navigation'', (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1945).
* {{Cite uscgnavbib}}

==External links==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080509101409/http://www.terrypepper.com/lights/closeups/tenders/index.htm Great Lakes Lighthouse tenders, Terry Pepper, Seeing the Light.]
* [http://www.uscg.mil/history/webcutters/Fir_1940.asp U.S. Coast Guard, Fir (WLM 212).]

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