[6] Light Vessel 117, serving at the Lightship Nantucket position from 1931, was rammed and sunk on 15 May 1934 by Olympic, a sister ship to Titanic, with loss of seven of the eleven crew aboard.

[2][7] The $300,956 cost of the replacement vessel, to be designated LV-112, was paid for by the British Government in compensation for the collision and sinking of LV-117 and was greater than that of any predecessor.

[2] The light vessel's keel was laid for the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Lighthouses by the Pusey and Jones Corporation, Wilmington, Delaware, under the firm's contract 1063 as yard hull 431 on 17 July 1935.

The hull was designed with a high degree of compartmentalization with longitudinal and transverse bulkheads with six exits to the upper deck.

Two oil fired Babcock & Wilcox water tube boilers provided steam for the compound reciprocating engine of 600 i.h.p.

Fog sound signals were a two tone air diaphone synchronized with a radio beacon, a submarine acoustic oscillator (removed in 1939) and a hand operated bell.

In April 1960 the vessel underwent major modification during a refit and modernization at the Coast Guard's Curtis Bay Yard.

[13][14][15] She was purchased in October 2009 by the United States Lightship Museum (USLM) under the leadership of Robert Mannino Jr. for $1 and arrived under tow in Boston Harbor on 11 May 2010.