The Horns Rev lightship — Motorfyrskib XVII — spent decades anchored in the dangerous shallows off western Jutland, warning shipping away from the sandbanks. Decommissioned in 1989, she is now permanently moored on the Esbjerg waterfront and open as a small museum about lightship life and the difficult navigation of the southern North Sea.
You climb down narrow companionways into preserved cabins, the engine room, and the wheelhouse with its array of fog-signalling apparatus. The whole visit takes thirty or forty minutes. It pairs naturally with the Fisheries Museum and the Men at Sea sculpture — all three sit within a kilometre of each other on the same harbour-front strip and are easy to do in one trip from the centre.