I have a print of the painting in my office. The text below it states:

“The Breaksea Lightship in the Bristol Channel, is the subject of this arresting painting by Charles Pears, R.O.I. The artist has illustrated a most important event in the life of the men who operate the lightship - relief and provisions being brought from a Trinity House tender. The Breaksea lightship is well known to navigators in the Bristol Channel. She has a red hull and carries a ball at her masthead. Her light shows one white flash every fifteen seconds and is visible at a distance of eleven miles. Her fog siren when in operation gives one blast of two and a half seconds every twenty seconds. Her submarine fog bell gives three quick strokes followed by an interval of ten seconds. The lightship's position is lat. 51° 30’ N., 3° 18’ W., off the Glamorganshire coast.”

Usually, four* seven of an eleven-man crew manned the ship only a short distance off-shore, but as one commented, "the distance might as well be a hundred miles!" [001] [096]

The lightship was a regular visitor to the Penarth pontoon for its periodic hull scraping and re-painting. Without regular maintenance the ship would accumulate barnacles and encrustation weighing her down and lowing her waterline. The lightship marked the entry to the Barry Roads and was situated a few miles south of Barry. [002] 

Our company, Rota Design Limited [108] has designed inshore navigation buoys for Trinity House, and has numerous buoys bobbing about, not only in UK coastal waters but in waters all over the world! The design incorporates rotationally moulded polyethylene floatation sections which are filled with a closed cellular foam with provides excellent floatation. The PE skin is said to save thousands of pounds (£ GBP) per buoy, per annum, since "nothing sticks to it" and thus, the maintenance costs associated with periodic scraping and re-painting the 'old' steel buoys are significantly reduced.

* Many thanks to Neil Jones at Trinity House (19 March 2015) for the correction to the text regarding the number of crew. Neil also kindly provided a history of the Trinity House Light vessels which I will include. Unfortunately there appears to be no records in their archive relating to maintenance of the light vessel(s) at the Penarth pontoon. Many thanks for your assistance Neil. [273]