---
title: "RMS Olympic passed Nantucket Lightship LV-117 close aboard in January 1934, then sank it four months later"
url: https://badiyaa.com/rms-olympic-nantucket-lightship-lv-117/
published: 2026-11-13T21:16:00+00:00
modified: 2026-11-13T21:16:00+00:00
section: History
publisher: Badiyaa
---

# RMS Olympic passed Nantucket Lightship LV-117 close aboard in January 1934, then sank it four months later

RMS Olympic, the Titanic's sister, was photographed passing Nantucket Lightship LV-117 in January 1934 and struck it in fog that May 15.

A photograph taken in early January 1934 shows RMS Olympic, sister ship of the Titanic, sliding past the Nantucket Lightship LV-117 so close that the two hulls almost seem to touch. Four months later, on May 15, 1934, the same liner came out of thick fog and cut straight through the much smaller lightship.

The picture has been circulating again because it looks like a near miss. In hindsight it reads more like a warning.

## A floating lighthouse in the busiest lane

LV-117 was a floating lighthouse run by the United States Lighthouse Service. Built in Charleston, South Carolina, for $274,434, she was 135 feet long, displaced 630 tons and carried a crew of 11. Her station lay 42 miles south by east of Sankaty Head Lighthouse on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, held in place by two 7,000-pound anchors in about 180 feet of water.

That position made her the first lightship westbound liners met on the run into New York Harbor. Big ships homed in on her radio beacon, and some steered close enough to give her crew a fright.

On January 6, 1934, the liner SS Washington, then the largest passenger ship yet built in the United States, struck LV-117 a glancing blow and carried away her radio antenna yards. Radio operator John Perry told friends that April: “Some day we are just going to get it head on, and that will be the finish. One of those big liners will just ride through us.”

## Fog, a beacon and 11:06 a.m.

On the morning of May 15, Olympic was feeling her way through fog toward the western end of the transatlantic lanes. Her crew picked up the lightship’s radio and fog signals at about 10:55 a.m., apparently off the starboard bow. Captain John Binks turned ten degrees to port and cut speed to ten knots.

Minutes later a lookout saw LV-117 dead ahead. Binks ordered the rudder hard to port, the engines full astern and the watertight doors closed. Olympic slowed to about 3 knots, but she weighed some 52,000 tons fully fueled, and the collision at 11:06 a.m. wrecked the lightship.

Here is the scale in plain numbers. The source puts Olympic at nearly 75 times the lightship’s 630 tons, so even at walking pace the liner carried far more momentum than the lightship’s hull could absorb.

Passengers on the liner barely noticed; one first-class traveler called it a “slight jar.” On the lightship, first mate C.E. Mosher later recalled: “We saw the Olympic loom out of the fog a short distance away.” Olympic lowered two emergency boats and a motor boat within minutes and searched for almost two hours. Four of the 11 lightship crewmen survived, including the captain, Mosher and Perry; seven did not.

## Timeline

- **March 14, 1930:** LV-117 launched.

- **February 8, 1931:** her crew takes aboard eight fishermen from the sunken schooner Aloma.

- **June 27, 1933:** a storm snaps her mooring chain; she regains station on June 30.

- **January 6, 1934:** glancing hit from SS Washington.

- **Early January 1934:** the photo of Olympic passing close aboard.

- **May 15, 1934:** sunk by Olympic.

- **July 1998:** a dive team led by Eric Takakjian confirms the wreck’s identity.

Olympic itself was barely scratched. Dented hull plates were repaired later in Southampton, and she left New York on schedule on May 17. The Cunard-White Star Line paid to build a replacement, LV-112, as reparation.

For another story of a ship lost in bad weather, read how [Gordon Lightfoot recorded his Edmund Fitzgerald song in December 1975](https://badiyaa.com/gordon-lightfoot-edmund-fitzgerald-song-1975/), or see more in our [history section](https://badiyaa.com/category/history/).

LV-117 still lies about 200 feet down on her port side, aft mast alongside the hull, at 40°37′N 69°37′W.

## Further reading

- [Wikipedia: United States lightship LV-117](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nantucket_Lightship_LV-117)

- [Wikipedia: RMS Olympic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Olympic)

*Image: Robert J. Welch, Harland & Wolff, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons*

*This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. [How we work](https://badiyaa.com/editorial-policy/).*