SCIENTIFIC ADVANCES     A visit to the Nantucket in the early 1970s would have produced a much different report. Scientific advances in hull design, the use of bilge keels, plus adoption of improved ballasting techniques produced more stable vessels. Not only did new hull designs reduce roll, but diesel engines also helped the captain keep his vessel headed into the wind for even greater stability. Unfortunately for some, however, the smell of diesel fuel was almost as distressing as the motion the engines helped prevent.     Over the years, creature comforts were upgraded too. Reading would become a popular pastime on lightships while radio, and later, television, helped to dispel boredom. Cooks produced a surprising variety of meals, and the murderous four-month tour was eventually reduced to approximately 30 days. One change, though, was for the worse, at least as far as crew comfort was concerned. The bleat of modern fog-horns was so loud that anyone venturing on deck without ear protectors risked pain and deafness.     These changes in safety practices, living conditions, and in ship and equipment design were slow in coming, and to understand why this was so, one must first understand how America's lightships were managed. Supervisory responsibility for lightships, as well as all other navigational aids, was assigned in 1820 to the Fifth Auditor of the Treasury Department, with control being performed through what was known as the Lighthouse Establishment - a loosely structured organization administered at the local level by the Collectors of Customs These people operated independently, acquiring material and equipment, contracting for construction and deciding on their own what requirements were to be satisfied. They also hired and fired personnel, paid the wages and carried out or arranged for the annual inspections of existing lighthouses, buoys and lightships. The inspection reports, together with recommendations which were based largely on personal preference and opinion, were then forwarded to the Fifth Auditor. Stephen Pleasonton, the Fifth Auditor, had no familiarity with the nature of his maritime involvement, and little interest in requirements for assisting mariners, distancing himself entirely from the events in progress. Control was exercised in singlehanded fashion by arbitrary findings based on review of the inspection reports, and by tight control of the purse strings. This resulted in a host of misguided decisions, shoddy and unsafe construction, and a system of navigational aids which was inadequate to the need, behind the times and technically inefficient.