No mention of these has been found on the East Coast but they are interesting.
In the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour, about 0.5nM South of Southsea Castle, there is a Port Hand Mark called ‘Spit Refuge’.
This must surely take its name from Captain Peacock’s Refuge Buoy which was installed there in the mid-nineteenth century and received a glowing review in the Illustrated London News of 1852. Presumably, by the marking, the one illustrated was at the Varne.
Despite the enthusiasm for it, what were the chances of unintentionally wrecking one’s ship near a refuge buoy?
There was at least one Refuge ‘beacon’ in Scotland at Skellig something and another at the Goodwin Sands that was washed away in 1877.
See World War Two Air Sea Rescue Buoys or Floats
Captain George Peacock (1805–83): Naval Officer, surveyor, inventor, entrepreneur