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One of Trinity House Vessel (‘THV’) Galatea’s key tasks is maintaining lightships. This (picture) is the Sevenstones Lightship, off the Isles of Scilly. Once manned, but now fully automated, like Trinity House’s remarkable lighthouse network, the Sevenstones Lightship rides the waves day in and day out; warning mariners off one of the most dangerous landfalls – against stiff competition – in the British Isles. Automated maybe, but as always there’s no substitute for hands-on checking; the illimitable power of the oceans can do strange things and great damage to any ship, and particularly to one that must sit at anchor and take whatever storms Old Father Neptune may summon. And with the Scilly Isles the UK point of arrival for the giant energies the Atlantic has gathered across its 106,460,000 square kilometres, Sevenstones has to be tough to tough it out…