The Overfalls is a 114-foot red-painted lightship moored on the canal in Lewes and open as a free museum. She is one of seventeen surviving American lightvessels of the original 179 built. The name on her hull — OVERFALLS — is for the Delaware shoal she finished her career on, even though she never actually served on that station; it was painted on for retirement in Lewes.
Below deck, the engine room, crew quarters, mess, and pilothouse have been restored to their working-era state. Volunteer docents — many of them former Coast Guard — give tours and explain how a crew of fifteen lived for weeks at a time at anchor in open water, with a foghorn that could be heard for five miles. Tours run May through October.