LIGHTSHIPS SATISFIED MULTIPLE AIDS TO NAVIGATION REQUIREMENTS     As seamarks, lightships satisfied multiple requirements. They could be moored in shallow water, even near shifting shoals where fixed structures could not be placed. They could just as easily be stationed in deep water many miles from shore, to serve as a landfall or a point of departure for trans-oceanic traffic. And being vessels, they could be readily repositioned to suit changing needs. In these roles, lightships served as day beacons, as light platforms by night, as sound signal stations in times of reduced visibility, and around the clock as transmitters of hearing- and distance-finding electronic signals. During their relatively brief era, U.S. lightships evolved into highly sophisticated and efficient aids to navigation. Progress and development in the early years of lightships was woefully inadequate, due primarily to organizational and management deficiencies which were allowed to persist for many years. Initially, little consideration was given to suitable design and construction characteristics. Early light vessels were largely a product of opinion and arbitrary judgment on the part of builders who were often ignorant of the true purpose of the vessel or its harsh operating environment.     Initially, lightships were exceedingly poor light platforms; their full body, shoal draft and light displacement combining to cause undue rolling and violent pitching. Thirtyone years after the first American lightship dropped anchor in Chesapeake Bay, the skipper of a seagoing light was complaining that "her broad bluff bow is not at all calculated to resist the fury of the sea, which in some of the gales we experience in the winter season, break against us and over us with almost impending fury." Such rolling and pitching, in turn, resulted in frequent loss of moorings and breakage or damage to the lanterns. Certainly by present-day standards, crew accommodations on early lightships would have been) judged uninhabitable. The weather could toss the vessel about so violently that even veteran sailors became seasick. On calm days, nausea gave way to tedium, for the crew could service the light and make things shipshape within a few hours, leaving the rest of the day for making rattan baskets to sell ashore or for simply whittling away the hours. Such baskets became known as "Nantucket Lightships Baskets" now highly prized by tourists in the New England area of the U.S. Seldom did anyone visit the ship's small library, and even shipboard food was monotonous, wholesome though it was. The most common dish was "scouse," which impressed the visitor as a "wonderful commingling of salt beef, potatoes and onions." And, in terms of tours of duty aboard early lightships, crewmembers spent eight months of the year at sea, two four-month stints separated by shoreleave.