Lightship: LV-071

Served temporarily at Nantucket Shoals from Jan 19 - Mar 7, 1906 when it was replaced by a horn buoy "N"

On August 6, 1918 the lightship was on station off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, when her crew sighted the American SS Merak sinking nearby. The Merak had been sailing off Diamond Shoals from New York city to the West Indies when Commander Waldemar Kophamel, of the submarine U-140, attacked her with torpedoes. One of Merak's crewmen spotted the wake of a torpedo, so the ship took to evasive maneuvers and grounded in the process. The Germans then surfaced and began bombarding the Americans with a deck gun, but the ship's crew successfully escaped without being harmed. LV-71 rescued the survivors; her skipper Master Walter L. Barnett then sent out a warning to alert friendly ships in the area of a U-boat's presence in the vicinity of the lightship. The signal was intercepted by U-140, which quickly returned to the scene and sank LV-71 with gunfire after letting her twelve-member crew and the survivors of the Merak row towards shore in a lifeboat.