During the latter portion of the Nineteenth Century, when the general abandonment of the Spontoon Islands by the Europeans was in full swing, there was little regard for the safety of the shipping that was passing through between North America and Asia.  The “natives” of the islands were too busy in carrying on with their lives and filling the vacuums left by the departing plantation owners. 

 With the formation of the “Althing” (or assembly) and the declaration of independence in 1895, the islanders began to see the slow return of commerce in the form of trader’s stores that were restricted to “Casino Island.”  In the course of the next five years trade and business really began to pickup as shipping increased; canned fish and other island produce are exchanged for lumber and manufactured goods.  With the increase in shipping came an increase in disasters in the form of ships running aground on coral reefs and hidden shoals.

 There hadn’t been any formalized means of aids to navigation.  Any attempt at providing a signal fire to passing ships were few in number and of the most primitive manner.  Some consisted of nothing more than a bonfire on the beach or baskets of flaming driftwood fitted to an outrigger canoe anchored close to shore.  Mostly, any lights found during the nighttime hours were strictly for the natives out fishing.  What prompted the looking into the means of providing navigational aid for shipping was the Pelican disaster of 1900.

 The Pelican was a small packet ship traveling from Rain Island for Spontoon Island.  It was carrying 100 passengers, a cargo manifest containing medical supplies, food items, and machinery for the inhabitants of the island, and a crew of 23.  Unusual foggy weather for mid-March, combined with a faulty compass and a helmsman asleep at the wheel, resulted in the ship drifting far from its intended route and bearing down on the rocky north shore of Albert Island.  The watch on deck knew something was amiss when they clearly heard the crash of breakers on rocks.  But by the time the officer of the watch reached the bridge the Pelican had its bottom ripped open, and she settled fast on the rocks where the waves continued to smash her into twisted metal.  The Court of Inquiry investigation that followed settled the blame squarely on the shoulders of the captain and crew for negligence and operating a vessel with a faulty compass.  However, only a handful of the 23 men that had been the ship’s compliment were present at the inquiry.  Most had gone down with the ship while valiantly saving the lives of 80 of the passengers.

 In the months that followed this disaster the Althing was bombarded by demands from shipping agents and the populace for means of assuring the safe passage of passengers and cargo through the myriad islands that compose the archipelago in the Nimitz Sea.  A committee was formed to investigate different forms of equipment available to direct shipping safely away from hidden dangers.  And a few of the members of that committee had at one time served with the Rain Island Naval Syndicate, and thus were familiar with what was needed.  For most of the year of 1901 and into the spring of 1902, the committee poured over the maps of every island in the archipelago, noting the reefs, shoal, and rocks surrounding them.  There were personal trips as well to the islands to determine the best possible places for erecting the necessary aids to navigation.  Once a comprehensive list was made of these places the committee turned its attention to the means of warning the ships away.  The suggestion of constructing lighthouses was debated for some time before the idea was shelved as being too costly in labor, material, and annual coverage of housing and payment for a keeper plus assistants.  Some earlier attempts at lighthouses had not worked well, either from poor construction of the towers that could not withstand tropical storms, or inadequate lantern apparatus.  Once again, a former officer of the R.I.N.S. stepped forward with a concept.  His proposal was for the construction of automatic lighting apparatus at these key locations listed by the committee’s prior investigation, as well as marker buoys along the sea lanes. 

 Acetylene gas, stored in high-pressure tanks in either buoys or towers, would provide the illuminant for the lights.  To turn them on and off at dusk and dawn, respectively, a device called a sun valve, developed by Mr. Gustaf Dalén of Stockholm, Sweden, would control the operation of the lantern.  Some lights would be of a continuous illumination, while others would have a flash preset to its particular location.  The means of this flashing would be through a clockwork mechanism controlling the gas valve to the lantern.  This mechanism would be wound via the flow and expansion of the acetylene gas into two chambers before it is consumed in the mantle.  They have worked so well in Europe and North America that these lights can be left unattended for as long as a year.

 There followed the proposal of establishing an operating group to service these lights.  It was settled upon to create an organization along the lines of the U.S. Lighthouse Service.  On the 7th of April, 1902, the Spontoon Island Navigational Aid Service came into being.  With the formation of the S.I.N.A.S. came the need of securing vessels that will maintain the vast numbers of buoys and automatic light towers scattered around the islands.  The N.A.S. committee was then charged by the Althing to seek and purchase available buoy tenders for their new service.  It was soon discovered that the U.S. Lighthouse Service was replacing some of its aged fleet of tenders with a newer class of vessel and putting the old ships up for auction, as well as some of the automatic lighting systems the N.A.S. would need to install.  So it was that the committee purchased four of the 135-foot FLOWER-class coastal tenders from the Lighthouse Service, and the manufacturing permits to construct further marker buoys and light towers when needed.  The next step was to divide the archipelago into four districts; each served by a tender. 

 But time and events would catch up with the Navigational Aid Service.  With buying older vessels the service also bought the problem of maintaining cantankerous equipment.  And it began to strain the relationship they had with the Rain Island Naval Syndicate on Moon Island who were maintaining the tenders.  And the loss of the buoy tender Iris during the Gunboat Wars of 1912 created a severe setback for the service.

 A Russian naval expedition from the island of Vostokiye Zemla was headed for Spontoon Island itself with the intent of seizing the island as a coaling station for further expansions into the Pacific island groups.  The unfortunate Iris was anchored at the south entrance to the island, making repairs to a light tower when a Russian corvette scouting for the van spotted the tender.  Fearing discovery they opened fire, shattering the other vessel’s superstructure and bursting the boilers.  The Iris exploded and sank with all hands.  She was the first casualty of the war.  But the tender was soon revenged as a squadron of torpedo boats from the Rain Island Commonwealth sallied forth to harass the corvette and other ships that followed. 

 In the aftermath of the brief war the Spontoon Island Althing took a hard look at its fleet.  Three ships were not enough to handle the great number of islands within the archipelago and their various points of danger to seagoing vessels.  And the ten years of having tenders that seem to spend about a third of the time in dock under repairs was putting a strain on the committee’s finances.  In desperation the Navigational Aid Service turned to the Rain Island Commonwealth for help.  In 1913, a twenty-year lease-to-own agreement was hammered out, whereby the Althing Navigational Aid Service committee would lease from the Rain Island Naval Syndicate five of their newer 180-foot KEEPER-class tenders.  Four of the coastal tenders would continue to service the four districts while the fifth was kept in readiness at Moon Island.  To cover the cost of these new ships the Althing agreed to increase the mooring fees by 3%, as well as the tariffs on goods brought in, fuel, service, and supplies.  There was the usual grumbling over the added costs by the other island groups, but in the end all agreed that the newer buoy tenders were a necessity they could afford.

In 1936, three years after the expiration of the leasing agreement, the S.I.N.A.S. began looking into means of shortening travel time for the tenders in their servicing duties.  This was not the first the subject had been looked into.  The cost of coal had been slowly rising during the early part of the Twentieth Century, as had the cost of maintaining the fleet.  Three times before the committee had delved into finding ways of cutting the time the tenders spent sailing from one island to the next in their inspection of buoys and light stations.  But each time they adjourned without a sensible way of rectifying this budgeting loggerhead.  Now a motion was laid before the committee that would prove to be the key to the problem.  It had been suggested that a buoy tender be modified to carry, launch, and recover a small seaplane.  The logic of this idea was for the crew of the seaplane to fly ahead of the tender and render a precursory examination of the automatic light towers and marker buoys for repairs, replacement, or recharge of calcium carbonate for the acetylene generators.  This would shorten the time the tender would take in sailing from one light to the next in its routine travel around its assigned district; servicing the equipment that needed servicing while bypass those in good shape.

 In July, 1936, the buoy tender Ida Lewis became the test bed for the project.  A framework was constructed on the aft deck to cradle the Andover Seagull while a derrick replaced the mizzenmast.  This was to hoist the amphibian in and out of the water.  A new radio mast was installed on the superstructure.  The Seagull was manufactured by the Andover Aircraft Co. of Andover, Rain Island, and was built under license from Supermarine Aircraft Ltd. of Great Britain.  Based on the Walrus, used by the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm, the pusher biplane amphibian departed from the original in having a wooden hull instead of one made from steel.  This saved on the cost of construction.  In fact, Jennifer Monroe, the current owner and pilot, had donated the Seagull used in the project.  Her father, Geoffrey Monroe, of Monroe Lumber and Wood Products in Andover, had signed the contract with Andover Aircraft to be the sole provider of lumber for the construction of the amphibians.  Mr. Monroe, for business and personal use, had purchased the very first production aircraft.  It was after his untimely death that his daughter took into her possession the Seagull and offered it to the S.I.N.A.S on the stipulation that she remained its sole operator.  After much grumbling by the committee it was agreed to take her into the service under special dispensation as a Pilot Officer. 

 After three months of trials the concept was declared a success and two more tenders were ordered prepared to receive their aircraft during the next fiscal year.  Until then, the assigned crews have been sent to Andover for flight and maintenance training on this aircraft.

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