First lightship

There are reports of ships with fire baskets attached to the mast reported as far back as Roman times but these vessels were not permanently moored to serve as navigational beacons. The first modern lightship to perform the function of a "floating lighthouse" was the Nore, stationed on the Nore/Goodwin Sands in the Thames Estuary, UK, c.1731. The concept was patented by Robert Hamblin (a former ship manager) and investor David Avery.

Previous calls for a lightship to be moored on the Goodwin Sands had been rejected in the 17th century.

Hamblin and Avery secured permission from King George II to build and install the first lightship in the Thames. The Nore resembled a small fishing sloop with two oil-burning lanterns, hung 12 feet apart from a cross arm high above the deck.

Hamblin and Avery immediately ran into trouble with Trinity House, the authority for seafaring navigation in the UK, who filed that the pair's patent should be revoked as it had been misleading and because they were not entitled to claim fees from their beacon. Trinity House won the lawsuit and went on to negotiate a deal with Avery to operate the Nore on their behalf for £100 a year for the next 61 years.

After great success in reducing wrecks and stranding, many more lightships of this design followed suit, starting with one moored at the Dudgeon, a shallow shoal off the Norfolk coast, in 1736. By the 1834 Report from the Select Committee on Lighthouses, 55 lights operated by Trinity House in England and Wales, 13 were provided by “floating lights”.

The first lightship in America did not arrive until summer 1820, when John Pool was contracted to station a vessel off Willoughby Spit in Virginia to assist Chesapeake Bay maritime trade; due to rough seas and storms, the vessel was later moved to more sheltered waters off Craney Island.