Today in Great Lakes History

[yachtsmanwilly]

Remains of Civil War-era shipwreck rumored to carry gold found in Lake Huron

12/10 - Grand Rapids, Mich. – The Civil War was only seven months old on Nov. 9, 1861, when the sidewheel steamer Keystone State passed into oblivion. Nobody even knew the ship had sunk until more than a week later, when wreckage was spotted off Port Austin and the Keystone State's wheelhouse washed ashore.

Since then, the ship has remained one of the many Great Lakes shipwreck mysteries; a tragedy that claimed the life of 33 crew members and sparked rumors about a clandestine cargo load of gold and war materials.

This year, part of the mystery has been solved. On Monday, Dec. 9, shipwreck hunter David Trotter announced the discovery of the Keystone State in Lake Huron, about 50 miles north of Michigan’s thumb in less than 200 feet of water.

“She wasn’t where she was supposed to be,” said Trotter, an avid shipwreck sleuth with more than 100 discoveries to his name. “I probably thought I’d never find her.”

Trotter’s Undersea Research Associates team discovered the wreck in July using side-scan sonar and has since made several dozen dives to document the site and attempt to answer questions about the ship’s mysterious cargo, which some believe was intentionally mislabeled on the manifest.

The 288-foot-long Keystone State, luxurious for her day, was the second largest ship on the Great Lakes when she was launched in 1849 and is one of the largest side-wheel steamers to disappear into their depths.

The ship was bound for Milwaukee, Wis., when she left Detroit on Nov. 8, 1861, carrying what was labeled “iron implements,” or farm machinery, on the cargo manifest. Since the sinking, rumors have persisted that the Keystone State was actually carrying military supplies destined for the battlefield.

A cargo of farm machinery in November on a special run — the ship normally moved between Detroit and Buffalo, N.Y. — invites a natural suspicion, Trotter said.

“Farm implements are not heavily used in the winter,” he said.

Unfortunately, Trotter’s team found an empty cargo hold. The reason probably won’t ever be fully known, but he said ship crews of the time would likely dump cargo in an effort to save a vessel in dire straits. The ship left Detroit in a hurry, without any lifeboats, he said.

According to the historical record, the Keystone State was last seen off Port Austin rolling heavily in rough water. The fact that she was found further north of where most believed she’d sunk “tells you she made quite a fight of it,” he said.

The ship’s captain, Wilkes Travers, may have been reluctant to turn the ship toward land for fear of being capsized in a sea trough, Trotter said. Control of a sidewheel steamer would be difficult in heavy seas due to the ship’s design.

Trotter said the wreck has “settled-in” quite a bit, and his team is still trying to sort out how much damage was caused by the storm, how much happened when the hull hit the bottom and what has occurred over the last 152 years.

The team hasn’t found any gold yet, but the wreck is surrounded by a large, yet-to-be-explored debris field, he said.

Due to the water depth, divers only have about 15 to 20 minutes to explore the wreck before they must decompress for more than an hour on the way back up.

Trotter, a retired Ford Motor Co. executive who lives in Canton, has been shipwreck hunting for more than 35 years.

His recent Great Lakes shipwreck discoveries include the 238-foot steamer New York about 25 miles northwest of Harrisville in July 2012, and a joint discovery with the Michigan Shipwreck Research Association of a 90-foot double-masted schooner in deep water off the coast of Grand Haven in October 2011.


Lookback #23 – Flying Independent closed Seaway December 10, 1963

12/10 - The American freighter Flying Independent was the last saltwater ship out bound through the Seaway fifty years ago today. This was the latest closing yet for a waterway that had only been in operation since 1959.

The next year, Flying Independent was not as fortunate. This was one of four ships trapped by the ice and had to spend the winter on the Great Lakes.

Flying Independent was built as the C-1 cargo vessel Cape Domingo It was constructed by Consolidated Steel Corp. of Wilmington, California, and launched on December 11, 1943. The ship entered service for the United States Maritime Commission the following February.

After a sale to the Isbrandtsen Co. in 1947, this steamship sailed as Flying Independent. It began Great Lakes trading with one trip in 1959, three more in 1962 and was leaving the inland lakes for the fourth time in the 1963 season when it recorded the final saltwater bound transit of that year. The ship made a total of 15 Seaway voyages until being sold late in 1965.

Renamed Harbor Hills, the freighter retained U.S. flag registry until being resold to Taiwanese shipbreakers. The vessel arrived at Kaohsiung on August 23, 1968, and was broken up by the Jui Cheng Co.




Today in Great Lakes History - December 10

The steamer EDWARD Y. TOWNSEND loaded the last cargo of ore for the 1942 season at Marquette.

CEDARGLEN, a.) WILLIAM C. ATWATER, loaded her last cargo at Thunder Bay, Ontario on December 10, 1984, carrying grain for Goderich, Ontario.

Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Co. of Cleveland, Ohio bought NOTRE DAME VICTORY on December 10, 1950. She would later become b.) CLIFFS VICTORY.

IRVIN L. CLYMER was laid up at Superior, Wisconsin on December 10, 1985, for two seasons before returning to service April 30, 1988.

An explosion occurred in IMPERIAL LEDUC's, b.) NIPIGON BAY ) forward tanks on December 10, 1951. This happened while her crew was cleaning and butterworthing the tanks. Five crewmembers were injured with one eventually dying in the hospital. Multiple explosions caused extensive damage in excess of $500,000.

On December 10, 1905, WILLIAM E. COREY finally was pulled free and refloated after grounding on Gull Island Reef in the Apostle Islands in late November.

FRANK A. SHERMAN laid up for the last time at Toronto, Ontario on December 10, 1981.

Donated by Cleveland-Cliffs to the Great Lakes Historical Society on December 10, 1987, the WILLIAM G. MATHER was to become a museum ship at Cleveland's waterfront.

PAUL H. CARNAHAN and her former fleet mate, GEORGE M. HUMPHREY, arrived safely under tow at Kaohsiung, Taiwan on December 10, 1986, for scrapping.

On 10 December 1891, a fire started on MARY (2-mast wooden schooner, 84 foot, 87 gross tons, built in 1877, at Merriton, Ontario) when an oil stove in the kitchen exploded. The vessel was at anchor at Sarnia, Ontario and damage was estimated at $10,000.

The CORISANE (2-mast wooden schooner-barge, 137 foot, 292 gross tons, built in 1873, at Marine City, Michigan) was tied up alongside MARY and she also caught fire but the flames were quickly extinguished. She was towed away from MARY by the ferry J C CLARK.

PERE MARQUETTE 3 ran aground in 1893, north of Milwaukee.

1922: The wooden freighter JAMES DEMPSEY, built in 1883 as a) JIM SHERIFFS, was destroyed by a fire at Manistee, MI.

1963: The Canadian coastal freighter SAINTE ADRESSE went on the rocks off Escoumins, QC and was leaking in high winds while on a voyage from Montreal to Sept-Iles. Local residents helped lighter the cargo of beer and ale. The remains of the hull were visible at low water for several years.

1975: PAUL THAYER went aground in Lake Erie off Pelee Island. It was lightered to WOLVERINE and released Dec. 12 with extensive damage.

1994: The Maltese registered YIANNIS Z. entered Chaguaramas, Trinidad and Tobago, in leaking condition after apparently hitting bottom while enroute from Manzanillo, Cuba, to Peru. The ship was arrested for non-payment of the crew. The vessel had been a Seaway trader in 1970 as a) MATIJA GUBEC. The hull was sold at public auction on August 28, 1997, and apparently partially dismantled to become a barge. It was noted sinking at its moorings on October 14, 2006, under the name f) KELLYS MARK and subsequent fate is unknown.

2005: JOHN D. LEITCH hit bottom above the Eisenhower Lock and began leaking.

[yachtsmanwilly]

Tuesday a wild and windy night on the lakes

12/11 - Sailors on the Great Lakes were either reducing speed and seeking some relief by skirting the western shorelines or seeking shelter as the effects of the latest gale warning became apparent. Westerly or west southwesterly winds in the mid-30-knot range were being reported on Lake Erie, with some gusts topping 40 knots. The same story was playing out on Lake Michigan, Lake Huron and Lake Ontario. Wind chill readings of six degrees were being noted, according to weather reporting station data. Forecasters were telling freighter captains the high winds might begin to ease slightly after midnight.

On Lake Erie, where a low water warning was also issued, Algosteel was at anchor in western Pigeon Bay near Colchester. Just east of Sandusky's pierhead, the Interlake fleet tug Dorothy Ann and barge Pathfinder were anchored. American Spirit was on the hook off Chicago's Jackson Park. Laying on the hook off Duluth were the Algoma Equinox, Stewart J. Cort and Algoma Navigator. Forecasters were telling skippers that they had issued a heavy freezing spray advisory for Superior.



Carferry Badger 2014 schedule set

12/11 - Ludington, Mich. – On a blustery, wintry day in Ludington, Lake Michigan Carferry Tuesday morning announced the dates of its 2014 sailing season, and noted it will announce rates soon. The season is scheduled to begin Friday, May 16. Double runs are scheduled to begin Friday, June 6 and end Tuesday, Sept. 2. The 2014 season is scheduled to end Sunday, Oct. 25.

Three shoreline cruises are scheduled: May 31, the Manitowoc Shoreline Cruise; June 7, Ludington Shoreline Cruise; July 4, Fourth of July Shoreline Cruise in Ludington.

The season will be a transitional one, as LMC is under orders to store coal ash generated by the SS Badger’s coal-fired, steam engines before the start of the 2015 season. This past year, U.S. District Court Judge Janet Neff signed the consent decree between LMC and the Environmental Protection Agency that allows the Badger to sail in 2014 with some added restrictions on its coal ash discharge to give LMC time it said it needs to create the coal ash storage system.

Ludington Daily News



Today in Great Lakes History - December 11

On 11 December 2002, after last minute dredging operations were completed, Nadro Marine’s tugs SEAHOUND and VAC took the World War II Canadian Naval Tribal-class destroyer H.M.C.S. HAIDA from her mooring place at Toronto’s Ontario Place to Port Weller Dry Docks where a $3.5M refit was started in preparation for the vessel to start her new career as a museum ship in Hamilton, Ontario.

TEXACO CHIEF (Hull#193) was launched December 11, 1968, at Collingwood, Ontario, by Collingwood Shipyards Ltd.

The H. LEE WHITE collided with the Greek salty GEORGIOS on December 11, 1974, near St. Clair, Michigan, and had to return to Nicholson's dock at Detroit, Michigan for inspection.

On December 11, 1979, while about 11 miles off Manitou Island near the Keweenaw Peninsula, the ASHLAND's engine stalled due to a faulty relay switch. Caught in heavy weather and wallowing in the wave troughs, she put out a distress call. True to Great Lakes tradition, four vessels immediately came to her assistance: two 1,000 footers, LEWIS WILSON FOY and EDWIN H. GOTT, along with WILLIS B. BOYER and U.S.C.G. cutter MESQUITE.

WILLIAM CLAY FORD loaded her last cargo at Duluth on December 11, 1984.

PERE MARQUETTE 21 passed down the Welland Canal (loaded with the remnants of Port Huron's Peerless Cement Dock) on December 11, 1974, towed by the tugs SALVAGE MONARCH and DANIEL MC ALLISTER on the way to Sorel, Quebec where she was laid up.

The fishing boat LINDA E vanished on Lake Michigan along with its three crewmen on December 11, 1998.

Upper Lakes Shipping Ltd.’s WHEAT KING was laid up for the last time December 11, 1981.

On 11 December 1872, the Port Huron Times listed the following vessels in winter lay-up in Port Huron: Sailing Craft: A H MOSS, FOREST HUNTER. MARY E PEREW, SEA BIRD, REINDEER, T S SKINNER, L W PERRY, ADAIN, LITTLE NELLIE, MAGGIE, PRINCE ALFRED, CAPE HORM, KITTIE, JOHNSON (wrecker), CHRISTIANA, HOWE, C G MEISEL, AUNT RUTH, W R HANNA, IRONSIDES, GOLDEN FLEECE, JOHN L GROSS, WARRINGTON, ANGLO SAXON, MOORE, LADY ESSEX, ANNIE, FORWARDER (sunk), GROTON, NORTHWEST, FRED H MORSE, GEM OF THE LAKES, D J AUSTIN, CZAR, JAMAICA, ANNIE (scow), AND HATTIE. Side wheel Steamers: 8TH OHIO, WYOMING (lighter). Propeller Steam Barges: W E WETMORE, SANILAC, CITY OF DETROIT. Tugs: KATE MOFFAT, TAWAS, HITTIE HOYT, FRANK MOFFAT, J H MARTIN, JOHN PRIDGEON, BROCKWAY, GLADIATOR, CORAL, GRACE DORNER (small passenger vessel), AND C M FARRAR.

On 11 December 1895, GEORGE W. ADAMS (wooden schooner-barge, 231 foot, 1444 gross tons, built in 1875, at Toledo, Ohio) was in tow of the steamer CALEDONIA with a load of coal, bound from Cleveland for Chicago. Her hull was crushed by ice and she sank near Colchester Shoals on Lake Erie. A salvage operation on her the following summer was a failure.

1911: A fire broke out in a wooden grain elevator at Owen Sound. The KEEWATIN was moored nearby for the winter but not yet locked in ice. The ship was moved to safety but the elevator was destroyed.

1963: MANCOX went aground in Lake St. Clair, near Peche Island, enroute from Sault Ste. Marie to River Rouge.

1984: The Yugoslavian freighter BEOGRAD, outbound in the Seaway with soybeans for Brazil, collided with the FEDERAL DANUBE at anchor near Montreal and had to be beached. The hull was refloated and arrived at Montreal for repairs on December 27. It was scrapped at Gadani Beach, Pakistan, as b) MURIEL in 1999. FEDERAL DANUBE (i) now operates for Canada Steamship Lines as c) OAKGLEN (iii).

[yachtsmanwilly]

Coast Guard ice breaking activities underway

12/12 - Ice is forming in the St Marys River. The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Biscayne Bay will conduct ice breaking operations to facilitate the movement of commercial shipping throughout the river. Additional cutters will assist throughout the river as needed. This activity will extend to the end of the shipping season, which normally concludes January 15.


Lookback #25 – Greater Detroit set ablaze on December 12, 1956

12/12 - I find it difficult to believe that some of our beautiful old passenger ships were intentionally torched, but the Greater Detroit was set ablaze on Lake St. Clair 57 years ago today. In many cases this was done for the convenience of not having to dismantle the woodwork prior to breaking up the steel hull for scrap. But, in some cases, these ships were actually set ablaze as a spectacle that drew crowds to the waterfront to watch them burn.

The 536-foot-long Greater Detroit served the Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Co. from the time of its construction in 1924 until it was retired. The magnificent ship cost $3.5 million to build and was noted as the largest sidewheel steamship in the world. Once in operation, it provided overnight service between Detroit and Buffalo. The ship was idle from 1950 until the sale for scrap in 1956. With the superstructure gone, the steel hull was towed into Hamilton by the tug Atomic on May 1, 1957. It was soon dismantled at the Steel Company of Canada dock.



Today in Great Lakes History - December 12

On 12 December 1898, FANNY H (wooden propeller tug, 54 foot, 16 gross tons, built in 1890, at Bay City, Michigan) was sold by J. R. Hitchcock to the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers. She underwent a major rebuild in 1908, when she was lengthened to 60 feet.

The push tug PRESQUE ISLE was launched December 12, 1972, as (Hull #322) by the Halter Marine Services, Inc., New Orleans, Louisiana.

SPINDLETOP, e.) BADGER STATE was launched December 12, 1942, for the United States Maritime Commission.

WHEAT KING returned to Port Weller Dry Docks on December 12, 1975, for lengthening to the maximum Seaway size of 730 feet overall for the iron ore and grain trade, thus ending her salt water activities.

One unusual trip for the WOODLAND occurred when she arrived at Toronto, Ontario on December 12, 1987, to load a 155-foot, 135-ton self-unloading unit for delivery to the Verolme Shipyard in Brazil, where the Govan-built Panamax bulk carrier CSL INNOVATOR was being converted to a self-unloader.

On Monday December 12, 1898, the AURORA was fast in the ice at Amherstburg, Ontario, when a watchman smelled smoke. The crew tried to put out the fire, but to no avail. They were taken off the burning vessel by the tug C A LORMAN. The ship burned to the water's edge, but was salvaged and rebuilt as a barge.

On December 12, 1956, the once-proud passenger vessels EASTERN STATES and GREATER DETROIT were taken out onto Lake St. Clair where they were set afire. All the superstructure was burned off and the hulls were taken to Hamilton, Ontario, where they were scrapped in 1957.

On 12 December 1872, the Port Huron Times listed the following vessels at winter lay-up at Sarnia, Ontario: Schooners: MARY E PEREW, KINGFISHER, UNADILLA, ONEONTA, AMERICAN, J G MASTEN, PELICAN, UNION, B ALLEN, and CAMDEN; Brigs: DAVID A WELLS, WAGONER, and FRANK D BARKER; Barks: C T MAPLE, EMALINE BATES, and D A VAN VALKENBURG; Steamer: MANITOBA.

On 12 December 1877, U.S. Marshall Matthews sold the boiler and machinery of the CITY OF PORT HURON at auction in Detroit, Michigan. Darius Cole submitted the winning bid of $1,000.

1898: The wooden passenger and freight carrier SOO CITY sank at the dock in Holland, Mi after bucking ice while inbound.

1925: SIR THOMAS SHAUGHNESSY stranded on a rocky shoal inside the breakwall at Fairport, Ohio. Hull repairs were listed at over $18,000.

1966: AMBROSE SHEA, a new Canadian carferry, was hit by a flash fire while under construction by Marine Industries Ltd. at Sorel, Quebec, and sustained over $1 million in damage. Completion of the vessel was delayed by 3 months before it could enter service between North Sydney, NS and Argentia, Newfoundland. The ship arrived at Aliaga, Turkey, for scrapping as d) ERG on June 22, 2000.

1972: SIR JAMES DUNN went aground in the St. Lawrence near the Thousand Islands Bridge while enroute to Sorel with grain.

1990: CLIPPER MAJESTIC was abandoned by the crew due to an engineroom fire off the coast of Peru. The vessel had been through the Seaway as a) MILOS ISLAND in 1981, MAJESTIC in 1989 and was renamed c) CLIPPER MAJESTIC at Toronto that fall. The damaged ship was towed to Callao, Peru, on December 13, 1990, and repaired. It also traded inland as d) MILLENIUM MAJESTIC in 1999 and was scrapped at Alang, India, as e) MYRA in 2012.

2009: The Canada Steamship Lines bulk carrier SPRUCEGLEN (ii) went aground near Sault Ste. Marie and had to go to Thunder Bay for repairs.

2010: The tug ANN MARIE sank in the Saginaw River while tied up for the winter. It was salvaged a few days later.

[yachtsmanwilly]

On first visit to Twin Ports, new Algoma Equinox is a cut above

12/13 - Superior, Wis. – Most ships have your standard engine room, cabins, kitchen, laundry room and a control room. The Algoma Equinox offers more. It has a 9,500-horsepower engine, super insulation, a fresh coat of paint, a lounge with a ping pong table, multiple places to catch a stunning view, a mini gym, and a restaurant-size kitchen with a chef making everyone fish and chips for dinner.

“This ship is incredibly big,” said Seann O’Donoughue, captain of the Algoma Equinox. “It took me a couple of weeks to learn everything about this ship.”

Algoma Equinox arrived in the Twin Ports on Wednesday to load iron ore for Cleveland Cliffs at the BNSF Railway Dock. The arrival marked the ship’s first full transit of the entire Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway, according to a news release.

The Algoma Equinox left the Nantong Mingde Shipyard in Nantong, China, on Oct. 1, sailing across 14,700 nautical miles in 61 days. The ship passed through the Panama Canal in mid-November and arrived in Canada for its first load of iron ore from ArcelorMittal Mining Canada in Port Cartier, Quebec, on Dec. 1. The ship left the next day for Hamilton, Ontario, to unload its cargo. Shortly after, the ship headed to Superior for a load of iron ore.

“We have a great crew that has been tremendously helpful during this journey,” O’Donoughue said. “Together we will continue this cold journey to Quebec City on Thursday to unload for Cliffs Natural Resources.”

The Algoma Central Corp. says these new vessels are the next generation of Great Lakes bulk carriers.

This gearless bulker is the first in a series of eight Equinox Class vessels being built at the Nantong Mingde shipyard, all designed for service on the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence waterway. Delivery of the other seven will occur at approximately three-month intervals through 2014-2015. The series consists of four gearless bulk carriers and four self-unloading bulk carriers. Algoma will own six of the series, including two gearless bulkers and four self-unloading vessels. CWB, formerly the Canadian Wheat Board, will own the other two gearless bulkers, which will be operated and managed by Algoma.

The Equinox Class represents the next generation of Great Lakes-St. Lawrence waterway bulk cargo vessels. Algoma's $300 million investment in its six Equinox Class vessels demonstrates the Corporation's commitment to operating in a sustainable manner.



Mailboat J.W. Westcott II heads for winter layup

12/13 - Detroit, Mich. – Thursday was the last day of service for the J.W. Westcott Company’s 2013 season. Mail and pilot services normally run to about Dec. 20 depending on ice conditions. After almost a week of below freezing temperatures ice is quickly building in the Detroit River.

The final delivery for the season was a pilot change on the Dara Desgagnes about 8 p.m. Pilots will now double up at other points with no service at Detroit.

The J.W. Westcott II departed the Detroit dock for Gregory’s Marina behind Belle Isle to be pulled from the water for the winter. The Westcott Company’s back up mailboat the Joseph J. Hogan was laid up earlier in the month. Service returns in April 2014, ice permitting.



Coast Guard wraps up buoy-retrieval, begins ice breaking

12/13 - Cleveland, Ohio – As the Coast Guard 9th District's Operation Fall Retrieve approaches completion throughout the Great Lakes, the agency, in partnership with Canadian and commercial entities, has begun ice-breaking operations as part of Operation Taconite in the western Great Lakes lakes Superior and Michigan, the St. Marys River, the Straits of Mackinac and northern Lake Huron.

Operation Fall Retrieve is 85 percent completed, and is expected to be finished next week.

Coast Guard Sector Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. commenced Operation Taconite Friday to prevent developing ice from hindering commercial navigation in the ports of Duluth, Minn., Superior, Wis., and Thunder Bay, Ont.

Coast Guard Sector Detroit has not yet commenced Operation Coal Shovel, which is the ice-breaking operation in the eastern Great Lakes region consisting of lakes Erie and Ontario, the Detroit and St. Clair rivers, Lake St. Clair, and southern Lake Huron. Operation Coal Shovel commences once ice development in the region requires it.

"Operation Taconite has been officially kicked off, the earliest in recent history," said Lt j.g. Katherine Pierson, Coast Guard 9th District Aids-to-Navigation and Domestic Ice Division. "We have already tasked a few of our cutters with breaking ice in Lake Superior and the St. Marys River, and several more units are fastidiously removing buoys as the lakes are experiencing rapid ice growth."

Operations Taconite and Coal Shovel constitute the country's largest domestic ice-breaking operations.

Domestic ice breaking is normally conducted for four basic purposes: search and rescue, urgent response to vessels beset by ice, assisting the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with community service requests such as flood relief, and facilitation of navigation to meet the reasonable demands of the maritime industry. Other emergency services include the opening of channels to icebound communities to ensure critical supplies of food, heating oil, and access to medical care.

When both ice-breaking operations are up and running, there will be nine district icebreakers and several Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers that can provide assistance during the 2013/2014 ice-breaking season.

As a result of the ice-breaking operations, certain waterways may close after consideration is given to the protection of the marine environment, waterway improvements, aids to navigation, the need for cross-channel traffic (e.g. ferries) and the availability of icebreakers. Another important consideration is the safety of residents of Great Lakes islands and other remote locations who use naturally-formed ice bridges for transportation to and from the mainland.

The Coast Guard advises all recreational ice users to plan their activities carefully, use caution on the ice, and stay away from shipping channels. Throughout the ice-breaking season, the Coast Guard will attempt to keep the public informed about ice-breaking operations by way of outreach to local media.

US Coast Guard



Better dredging needed on lake

12/13 - Sandusky, Ohio – U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur says that when a Canadian ship ran aground in Sandusky Bay last month, it helped make her point that dredging of Lake Erie’s shipping channels and harbors is being neglected.

“I could use a good photo,” Kaptur said Tuesday. “I could take it to the floor.”

The CSL Niagara ran aground on Nov. 17 and had to be helped away by tugboats. Kaptur and other lawmakers from the area are hoping Great Lakes dredging will get more attention soon.

Kaptur signed a letter from Great Lakes lawmakers asking a conference committee writing the final version of the Water Resources Reform and Development Act to include a provision giving direction to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The language tells the agency to treat the lakes as one system, rather than a collection of ports.

The committee agreed to the request, a key goal of the Lake Carriers Association, a trade group representing the Great Lakes shipping industry. The association is located in Rocky River, in Kaptur’s district.

The Army Corps treats the Mississippi River as a system, and Great Lakes backers hope designating the Great Lakes as a system, too, will send more money to maintain Great Lakes shipping.

“They spend the least amount of money in our part of the country,” said Kaptur, who said she had just met with the Army Corps’ associate director to discuss dredging.

Dredging in Sandusky’s harbor is about 800,000 cubic yards behind what it should be, according to figures supplied by the Lake Carriers Association.

Glen Nekvasil, vice president of the Lake Carriers Association, said he doesn’t know the particulars of the Niagara incident, but said “There’s no denying there’s a dredging crisis on the Great Lakes”

Lack of dredging means shipping channels and harbors are too shallow, and that means cargo ships on Lake Erie and other lakes aren’t carrying all of the cargo they could, Nekvasil said. Ships lose 50 to 270 tons of cargo for each inch of draft they give up, he said.

“We are vastly underutilizing the capacity of the system,” he said.

Dredging the Great Lakes properly would mean that ships could carry more cargo without having to add crew or burn more fuel. The big cargo ships on the Great Lakes get about 600 miles per gallon, so shipping goods on water is cheaper and better for the environment than any other kind of transportation, he said.

He said the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund takes in $1.6 billion a year from taxes on cargo but spends only about half that. “It’s kind of like pulling up on a toll booth and paying your toll and being told the speed limit is no longer 60, it’s 30” he said.


Lookback #26 – Lakes-built Indigirka rolled on its side on December 13, 1939

12/13 - The loss of the Great Lakes built freighter Indigirka 74 years ago today is an excellent example of man's inhumanity to man. The ship ran aground in rough weather and then rolled on its side and was abandoned by the crew. This resulted in the deaths of 741 prisoners who were being carried in the cargo holds.

This ship was built at Manitowoc, Wis., and launched as Lake Galva on December 20, 1919. It was completed as Ripon in May 1920 and left the inland lakes for deep sea trading for C.D. Mallory & Co. It joined Moore-McCormack as Malash in 1926 and then, following another sale, was renamed Commercial Quaker.

In 1938, the ship was sold to the Government of Russia and renamed Indigirka for a river in Siberia. It was employed to carry political prisoners from Vladivostok, at the end of the Trans-Siberian Railway, to labor camps in Siberia. Up to 1,500 prisoners could be carried in the cargo holds, under horrific conditions, at one time.

On December 8, 1939, the ship sailed from Magadan for Vladivostok with a crew of 39 sailors, 249 fishermen returning to the mainland, 50 guarded prisoners and 835 former prisoners who were being released because their skills were needed in the war effort.

On December 13, 1939, the ship encountered a blizzard while trying to enter the Laperouse Strait off northern Japan and rolled on its side. The captain and crew were rescued by local fishermen but the prisoners were left behind. When the storm subsided, a group returned with acetylene torches to cut into the side of the hull for the prisoners. Most were dead and the casualty list was 741.

The captain was tried and executed for abandoning his ship under these conditions.

A later Indigirka, another Russian freighter, frequently provided winter service to Montreal and was a Seaway caller in 1968. This ship was reported broken up for scrap in the first quarter of 1982.



Today in Great Lakes History - December 13

CANADIAN ENTERPRISE entered service for Upper Lakes Shipping Ltd. on December 13, 1979.

On December 13, 1989, Kinsman’s HENRY STEINBRENNER, a.) WILLIAM A. MC GONAGLE was laid up at Toledo's Lakefront Dock.

G.A. TOMLINSON, a.) D.O. MILLS arrived under her own power at Triad Salvage Inc., Ashtabula, Ohio, on December 13, 1979, to be scrapped.

THOMAS WILSON ran aground in the St. Marys River on December 13, 1976. The accident required lightering before she would float free.

On 13 December 1872, the Port Huron Times added three vessels to those in winter lay-up at Port Huron: Steamer MARINE CITY, tug JOHN PRINDEVILLE, and wrecking tug RESCUE. December 13, 1906 - The ANN ARBOR NO 4 departed for Manitowoc, Wisconsin on her first trip.

In 1929, the McLouth Steamship Company filed a claim against the City of Port Huron for $687 because its sand sucker, the KALKASKA, was held up for 27-1/2 hours in the Black River because of an inability to open the north span of the Military Street Bridge.

On 13 December 1961, SWEDEN, a.) L C SMITH, steel propeller, 414 foot, 4702 gross tons, built in 1902, at W. Bay City, Michigan) arrived in tow at Savona, Italy, for scrapping.

1899: BARGE 115 broke loose of the towing steamer COLGATE HOYT in northern Lake Superior and drifted for 5 harrowing days before it stranded on Pic Island on December 18. While feared lost with all hands, the crew managed to come ashore in the lifeboat, found their way to the rail line and hiked to safety. They were found December 22.

1906: JOHN M. NICOL was loaded with barbed wire when it stranded off Big Summer Island, Lake Michigan. The crew was rescued by fishermen in a gasoline-powered launch, but the ship broke in two as a total loss.

1916: BAY PORT, a whaleback steamer built at West Superior as a) E.B. BARTLETT in 1891, struck bottom in the Cape Cod Canal enroute to Boston with coal. The ship was refloated but sank again December 14 blocking the entrance to the canal. All on board were saved. The hull had to by dynamited as a hazard.

1939: The Russian freighter INDIGIRKA went aground in a blizzard off the coast of Japan while trying to enter Laperouse Strait, near Sarafatsu, Japan. The ship rolled on its side and was abandoned by the crew. It was carrying fishermen and political prisoners. A reported 741 died in the cargo holds after being left behind. Only a few were still alive when salvagers returned after the storm had subsided. The vessel had been built at Manitowoc, WI in 1919 as a) LAKE GALVA and was renamed b) RIPON before leaving the lakes the next year.

1965: The Liberty ship PONT AUDEMER made one trip through the Seaway in 1960. It was abandoned by the crew as d) VESPER following an engineroom explosion on the Mediterranean enroute from Marseilles, France, to Abidjan, Ivory Coast. The vessel arrived at Cartagena, under tow on December 18, 1965. It was sold to Spanish shipbreakers and left for Villanueva y Geltru for dismantling on May 18, 1966.

[ppat324]

On 14 December 1902, JOHN E. HALL (wooden propeller freighter, 139 foot, 343 gross tons, built in 1889, at Manitowoc, Wisconsin) was towing the barge JOHN R. NOYES (wooden schooner, 137 foot, 333 gross tons, built in 1872, at Algonac, Michigan) on Lake Ontario when they were caught in a blizzard-gale. After a day of struggling, the NOYES broke loose and drifted for two days before she went ashore and broke up near Lakeside, New York without loss of life. The HALL tried to run for shelter but swamped and sank off Main Duck Island with the loss of the entire crew of nine.

On December 14, 1984, WILLIAM CLAY FORD laid up for the final time at the Rouge Steel plant in Dearborn, Michigan.

The JIIMAAN was towed out of dry dock at Port Weller Drydocks Ltd. on December 14, 1992, by the tugs JAMES E. McGRATH and LAC VANCOUVER to the fit out dock for completion.

CHICAGO TRIBUNE was sold for scrap in 1988, and was towed up the Welland Canal on December 14, 1988, by the tugs THUNDER CAPE and MICHAEL D. MISNER to Port Colborne, Ontario.

On December 14, 1926, W.E. FITZGERALD was caught in heavy seas and suffered damaged frames and hull plating. Repairs consisted of replacing nearly 25,000 rivets and numerous hull plates.

The package freighter GEORGE N. ORR, a recent war acquisition from the Canada Atlantic Transit Company, was wrecked off Savage Point, Prince Edward Island, on December 14, 1917. She was enroute to New York City with a load of hay.

On 14 December 1883, MARY ANN HULBERT (wooden schooner-barge, 62 gross tons, built in 1873, at Bayfield, Wisconsin) was carrying railroad workers and supplies in tow of the steamer KINCADINE in a storm on Lake Superior. She was sailing from Port Arthur for Michipicoten Island. The HULBERT was overwhelmed by the gale and foundered, The crew of five plus all 15 of the railroad workers were lost.

December 14, 1903 - The PERE MARQUETTE 20 left the shipyard in Cleveland, Ohio on her maiden voyage.

1977: SILVER FIR, outbound from Great Lakes on her only trip inland, went aground at Squaw Island, near Cornwall and was released two days later.

1991: The small tug HAMP THOMAS sank off Cleveland while towing a barge. They were mauled by 12-foot waves but the barge and a second tug, PADDY MILES, survived as did all of the crew.

1997: CANADIAN EXPLORER of Upper Lakes Shipping and the ISLAND SKIPPER collided in the St. Lawrence at Beauharnois with minor damage. The former reached Hamilton and was retired. The latter was repaired and resumed service. It revisited the Great Lakes as late as 2010.

[yachtsmanwilly]

Ice update: USCG cutters keeping traffic moving

12/16 - Vessels that were stalled in the St. Marys River Sunday morning due to ice below Neebish Island were moving again by noon thanks to the efforts of the USCG cutter Biscayne Bay. Meanwhile, it is expected that the icebreaker Mackinaw will be joining in the efforts to maintain vessel tracks in the St. Marys as conditions worsen. Weather forecasters are predicting more snow and below freezing temperatures all week. In related news, the MacArthur Lock is scheduled to close today. Grays Reef Passage will close at 6 p.m. Wednesday. Katmai Bay has been busy breaking ice in the Duluth-Superior area, along with local tugs.




Lighthouse on Lake Huron can be yours for $1 million

12/16 - Port Sanilac, Mich. – Ice chunks cling to the rocks and float along the shoreline of Lake Huron as heavy snow clouds hover over the horizon, threatening a storm to come. But no matter how dark it gets, the Port Sanilac lighthouse will guide anyone out on the lake to shore.

It’s been that way since 1886.

“When you’re there in the winter and the winds start kicking up, you get a real sense of what it was like when there was a keeper there carrying kerosene up the stairs to the light, doing his job,” said Tim Conklin, who has owned the lighthouse and its attached caretaker’s house with his wife, Ian Aronsson, since the 1990s when she inherited it.

Aronsson’s grandfather Carl Rosenfield, founder of Carl’s Chop House in Detroit, bought the property from the government in 1928 for $4,000 after it was decommissioned.

“Back when the government originally sold the lighthouse, it didn’t have that kind of historic connotation that they do now,” Conklin said. “They just sold it as surplus government property.”

Now the couple has decided to sell the property, which has been the time capsule for more than 80 years of their family’s memories.

“It’s been a constant living history for us,” Conklin said. “The things that are inside, it’s not a museum where things were collected from the period; it’s stuff that’s been used.”

Conklin and Aronsson have used the lighthouse as a weekend and summer home, taking the time to renovate the attached 2,400-square-foot three-bedroom, 1 1/2-bath home.

Price for the lighthouse and caretaker home: $999,800.

The lighthouse is a beacon for both ships and for the village of about 620 residents in the Thumb area, said Port Sanilac village president Andy Fabian.

“The history is just incredible. There are some great stories attached to that building,” said Fabian, owner of the Van Camp House Restaurant. “It’s the centerpiece of our community.”

The lighthouse was built as a response to increased shipping traffic in the Great Lakes. Two families lived in the caretaker’s house before Rosenfield bought the property.

Until the lighthouse’s lamp was electrified in 1929, the keeper would lug the fuel up 58 feet of stairs to the tower to keep the light burning. The light is now automated and can be seen 16 miles out into the lake, beamed by the lighthouse’s original Fresnel lens, which is owned and cared for by the Coast Guard.

The lighthouse is so important to Port Sanilac, the village considered buying the lighthouse last year, but couldn’t find the funds, said Fabian.

“It was just out of our reach,” he said. “To do a (loan) we would have had to have a supporting millage and it would have been a bad time to put a tax on our residents.”

According to the state tourism website, Michigan has 115 lighthouses, more than any other state. The opportunities to buy one are few and far between.

Since 2000, the federal General Services Administration has sold 26 lights for prices ranging from $10,000 to $933,000, mostly to governmental entities or nonprofits, said Cat Langel, a spokeswoman for the agency’s Great Lakes Division.

Once the U.S. Coast Guard determines a light isn’t necessary anymore, the GSA is authorized to begin the process to find new stewards for the light under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act.

If the government can’t find a qualified buyer, the law allows the property to be sold at auction, usually with a minimum bid deposit of $10,000, Langel said.

“As with any real estate, there are numerous factors that affect each property’s final price including location, condition of the property, and fluctuations in the real estate market,” she said.

Privately owned lighthouses presently for sale in Michigan include one on Squaw Island, near Beaver Island, which is listed for $3.2 million and includes 69 acres, and the Round Island lighthouse on St. Mary’s River, which is listed for $2.4 million and includes the 7-acre island and a 3-acre mainland parcel.

Anyone who takes on a lighthouse will have to be prepared for the responsibility, said Jeff Shook, president of the Fenton-based Michigan Lighthouse Conservancy, which specializes in restoring decommissioned lighthouses around the state.

“It’s somebody that has to have a passion and interest in history, because it’s a lot of upkeep and maintenance in general,” said Shook. “It would be very, very beneficial to have somebody who has that respect for the history of the tower and the house.”

The Port Sanilac lighthouse is unusual because unlike most lighthouses, it’s in a village, rather than a remote area, he said.

“I always say there’s this lighthouse keeper romance that people have,” said Shook. “You get a remote lighthouse someplace that’s hard to get to and off the beaten track, and hey there’s this family that used to live out there and keep the light and guide ships.”

The view from the top of the Port Sanilac lighthouse includes the water and the nearby marina, which is closed during the winter. But even with few shops open in the area, people still drive past, stopping to pause, roll down their windows and snap photos of the stark white tower standing out against the cloudy sky.

“It’s an iconic monument for our beautiful little town,” said Fabian. “That light shines through the whole winter reminding us we’ll be out on the water soon.”

The Detroit News


Marysville power plant to come down

12/16 - St. Clair, Mich. – The historic Marysville Power Plant, a landmark that sits across from Sarnia on the Michigan side of the St. Clair River, has been sold and is expected to be demolished. Detroit-based DTE Energy announced recently it has reached an agreement to sell the decommissioned coal-fired electricity plant to the St. Louis-based Commercial Development Company.

The power plant, known as the "Mighty Marysville," operated from 1922 until 2001 and sits on a 20-acre site along the river. The buyer is expected to demolish the building and prepare the property for future development, according to a DTE press release.

"We are confident we can lay the foundation for a future development that will suit the community's needs," said Randall Jostes, a representative of the buyer. Demolition is expected to take place in phases within two years.

"This is a happy day for the City of Marysville," said assistant city manager Randall Fernandez. "We envision this site becoming a destination stop in southwestern Michigan, and anticipate it will provide good jobs and a strong tax base in the region."



Historic tug Ashtabula likely to be scrapped

12/16 - The 98-year-old tug Ashtabula has been lifted out of the water at the Dean Construction Company dock at LaSalle, Ont., and will probably be scrapped over the winter. While the vessel has a long history around the Great Lakes, it has not seen commercial service since perhaps the mid-1980s.

Ashtabula (US 212966) was built by the Great Lakes Towing Co. at Cleveland, Ohio, and joined their fleet in 1915. The 77 foot long (overall) by 17 foot wide vessel served the company around the Great Lakes. It was sold to the Canadian Shipbuilding and Engineering co. in 1947 and operated by Canada Steamship Lines as a harbor tug. Renamed Tiffin in 1955, the ship was re-powered a year later with a 500-horsepower diesel engine replacing the original second-hand high pressure engine that had served the vessel for 40 years.

Tiffin was sold to Wakeham & Sons Ltd. in 1969 and renamed Jenny T. II the following year. It was employed in and around Hamilton, Ontario, and paired with the bunkering barge S.M.T.B. NO. 7. Together they provided a refueling service for Shell Canada Ltd. in Hamilton harbor. The self-propelled tanker Hamilton Energy took over this contract in 1985 and, since then, the tug has been moved around the lakes.

There were thoughts of turning the vessel into a pleasure craft and it was to be refurbished at Oscoda, Michigan, but the ship went aground there in 2002 and apparently burned out the gears trying to get free. The tug was sold and taken to Port Dover where, in 2003, was listed under “wreck for sale.” It moved across the lake to Cleveland where, on June 25, 2006, it caught fire while undergoing maintenance. The blaze did some damage to the pilothouse and forward cabin. Now, having exhausted several reprieves, the end of the line has come and it appears that the vessel will be broken up for scrap during the winter.



Obituary: John H. Wilterding Jr.

12/16 - John H. Wilterding Jr., 83, Algoma, Wis., passed away Thursday, Nov. 21 at Unity Hospice in DePere with his family by his side. His passion was maritime history (especially Great Lakes), World War II, pocket watches and Midwest railroads.

Mr. Wilterding was a member and contributor to many publications of various maritime, watch and clock collectors, railroad societies and associations. He donated 69 volumes of his research on Great Lakes ships and shipping from 1900 to the present to the Wisconsin Maritime Historical Society, Marine Room, at the Milwaukee Public Library. He also wrote and published “McDougal's Dream: The American Whaleback” in 1969.

Memorials may be given to Algoma United Methodist Church or Door County Maritime Museum.

Wendell Wilke


Lookback #29 – Pilothouse fire aboard Donnacona in Lake Huron on December 16, 1964

12/16 - A fire broke out in the forward cabin of the Canada Steamship Lines’ bulk carrier Donnacona 49 years ago today. The blaze ignited in the accommodation area and spread quickly to the wheelhouse, knocking out the radio before a distress call could be sent out.

The disabled freighter, down bound with a cargo of grain, was at the mercy of what was fortunately a relatively calm lake. Their situation was first spotted by the passing steamer Wyandotte, which notified the Coast Guard. The latter sent help to the scene to stand by the stricken ship.

Donnacona was unceremoniously towed to Windsor by the tugs Maine and Superior. There, the burned out forward cabin was removed and replaced. The vessel resumed trading for CSL in 1966 but tied up at Midland at the end of the 1968 season.

Following a sale for scrap, the ship raised steam one last time and came down the Welland Canal on June 14, 1969. It departed Quebec City on June 21, under tow of the tug Mississippi and in tandem with the Ben E. Tate. They arrived at Bilbao, Spain, on July 12 where the two old lakers were dismantled.

The 625-foot overall long Donnacona, built as W. Grant Morden in 1914, was once the largest Canadian laker on the inland seas. It set cargo records for wheat, oats, barley and iron ore in the early years and was given its final, and best-known name, in 1926.




Today in Great Lakes History - December 16

In 1949, the tow line between the tug JOHN ROEN III and the barge RESOLUTE parted in high seas and a quartering wind. The barge sank almost immediately when it struck the concrete piers at Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. Eleven crewmembers, including Captain Marc Roen, were safely taken off the barge without difficulty.

On 16 December 1922, the JOSHUA W. RHODES (steel propeller bulk freighter, 420 foot, 4,871 gross tons, built in 1906, at Lorain, Ohio) struck bottom in the middle of the St. Clair River abreast of Port Huron, Michigan. Damages cost $6,179.32 to repair.

In 1983, HILDA MARJANNE's forward section, which included a bow thruster, was moved to the building berth at Port Weller Dry Docks where it was joined to CHIMO's stern. The joined sections would later emerge from the dry dock as the b.) CANADIAN RANGER.

IMPERIAL BEDFORD (Hull#666) was launched December 16,1968, at Lauzon, Quebec, by Davie Shipbuilding Co.

Canada Steamship Lines’ J.W. MC GIFFIN (Hull#197) was launched December 16, 1971, at Collingwood, Ontario, by Collingwood Shipyards.

Litton Industries tug/barge PRESQUE ISLE departed light from Erie, Pennsylvania, on December 16, 1973, on its maiden voyage bound for Two Harbors, Minnesota. This was the latest maiden voyage date at that time. There, the PRESQUE ISLE loaded 51,038 long tons of taconite pellets for delivery to Gary, Indiana. After this ice-covered trip, the vessel returned to Erie for winter lay-up. PRESQUE ISLE was the second thousand-foot vessel on the Great Lakes (the Erie-built STEWART J. CORT which came out in 1972, was the first).

While in tandem tow on the way to scrapping with the former Ford Motor Co. steamer ROBERT S. McNAMARA, BUCKEYE MONITOR developed a crack in her deck amidships. The crack extended down her sides to below the waterline and she sank at 0145 hours on December 16, 1973, at position 43¡30'N x 30¡15'W in the North Atlantic.

BENSON FORD, a) RICHARD M. MARSHALL made her last trip to the Detroit’s Rouge River where she was laid up on December 16, 1984.

The PIC RIVER was the last vessel to use the old Welland City Canal on December 16, 1972, as the new Welland by-pass opened the following spring.

WOLFE ISLANDER III arrived in Kingston, Ontario on December 16, 1975. Built in Thunder Bay, she would replace the older car ferries WOLFE ISLANDER and UPPER CANADA on the Kingston - Wolfe Island run.

WILLIAM A. IRVIN sustained bottom damage in Lake Erie and laid up December 16, 1978, at Duluth, Minnesota.

The Maritimer THOMAS WILSON operated until December 16, 1979, when she tied up at Toledo. During that final year, the vessel carried only 30 cargoes and all were ore.

On 16 December 1906, ADVENTURER (wooden propeller steam tug, 52 foot, built in 1895, at Two Harbors, Minnesota) broke her moorings and went adrift in a gale. She was driven ashore near Ontonagon, Michigan on Lake Superior and was pounded to pieces.

On 16 December 1954, the 259-foot bulk carrier BELVOIR was launched at the E. B. McGee Ltd. yard in Port Colborne, Ontario. She was built for the Beaconsfield Steamship Co. and sailed in the last years before the Seaway opened. During the winter of 1958-59, she was lengthened 90 feet at Montreal. She left the lakes in 1968, and later sank in the Gulf of Honduras with the loss of 21 lives.

1939: GLITREFJELL was torpedoed and sunk in the North Sea by U-59 while sailing southwest of Norway. The vessel was newly built when it first came to the Great Lakes in 1934.

1941: The Norwegian freighter NIDARDAL, best remembered as LAKE GORIN, a World War One-class laker, foundered in the Atlantic P: 56.07 N / 21.00 W enroute from Freeport, Bahamas, to Manchester, England, with sulphur.

1962: ARISTOTELES of 1943 sank in the Atlantic 250 miles off Cape Vincent, Portugal, after developing leaks. The vessel, enroute from Detroit to Calcutta with steel, had first come inland in 1961. All on board were rescued by the Liberty ship HYDROUSSA, which had also been a Seaway trader in 1962.

1964: DONNACONA (ii) was disabled by a fire while downbound in Lake Huron and the forward cabin was burned out before a distress call could be sent. The ship was found, brought to safety and repaired.

1966: CABOT was loading at Montreal when the ship rolled on her side at Montreal and sank in 30 feet of water. Two lives were lost. It was righted on the bottom and refloated in January 1967 for a return to service. The stern of this vessel was cut off to help form CANADIAN EXPLORER in 1983 and has been part of ALGOMA TRANSFER since 1998.

1975: THORNHILL (i) went aground in the St. Marys River, was lightered and released.

1979: ARCHANGELOS ran aground in the St. Lawrence while outbound from the Great Lakes with a cargo of scrap. The ship was lightered and released December 21. It had to spend the winter in the harbor at Port Weller as it was too late to depart the Seaway that year.

1980: D.G. KERR (ii), enroute overseas to Spain for scrapping, was lost in the Atlantic, after it began leaking in bad weather.


Ice causing problems at the Soo

12/15 - 11 a.m. update - Ice in the area south of Neebish Island was causing trouble for vessel traffic in the St. Marys River Sunday morning. The St. Clair, which spent Saturday night and early Sunday lodged in the upbound channel, was released Sunday morning by the USCG Biscayne Bay. The cutter immediately moved to assist the downbound Stewart J. Cort, stuck below the Neebish cut.

Traffic behind the Cort was at a standstill, with American Mariner anchored above the Neebish Cut and the Alpena on the hook at Nine Mile. Edwin H. Gott was leaving the locks downbound at 10:45 am and moving slowly as efforts to free the Cort continued. American Century and Kaministiqua were waiting above the locks.

Ice has been causing difficulties with the lock gates as well. Meanwhile, Indiana Harbor, Walter J. McCarthy Jr., Paul R. Tregurtha and Saginaw were all upbound at or below Lime Island at mid-morning, with Algomarine and Anglian Lady off DeTour.

Original report - Temperatures dropping near zero at the Soo has resulted in large build-up of ice in the river traffic lanes cut by local icebreakers. On Saturday night, the St. Clair was stuck in ice in the St Marys River near the upbound channel below the Neebish Island turning buoy. An icebreaker was called for early morning break out. Ice was also causing problems at the Soo Locks Saturday. Most boats are still getting through without assistance.


Ship's chief engineer dies after fall aboard ship in Seaway

12/15 - Massena, N.Y. – A Russian man died on the St. Lawrence Seaway at the Snell Lock early Thursday morning following a 10-foot fall from a flight of stairs aboard a Liberian vessel, the MCT Altair.

Sergey N. Menzhiliy, the ship’s chief engineer, reportedly fell from that stairs around 12:35 p.m. while returning to the engine control room. Medical personnel on the vessel attempted life-saving measures but were unsuccessful, troopers said.

St. Lawrence County Coroner Jamie Sienkiewicyz responded and pronounced Menzhiliy deceased. An autopsy, conducted at Massena Memorial Hospital on Dec. 12, revealed that Menzhiliy died due to a pre-existing medical condition, officers said.

State police said they were assisted on the scene by the United States Coast Guard and the Massena Rescue Squad.

North Country News




North Country News





Catherine Desgagnes loses power, towed in for repairs

12/15 - Muskegon, Mich. – Big lake freighters having problems on Lake Michigan would do well to have them outside of Muskegon Harbor, the captain and crew of the Catherine Desgagnes learned Wednesday.

The 410-foot Desgagnes, out of Quebec City, Quebec, lost power about 30 miles northwest of the Muskegon pierheads about 9 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 11. The call for help from vessel agent Aaron Bensinger, of Inter Ship in Chicago, went to Port City Marine Services President Ed Hogan in Muskegon.

Hogan pulled a Muskegon rescue team together and the ship was towed to the Mart Dock in downtown Muskegon, fixed and sent on its way, back on Lake Michigan by 10 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 12.

“We were able to provide them with transportation, refuge and repairs all from the local port,” Hogan said.

Key in the rescue and repair were two Muskegon companies: Andrie Specialized, a division of Andrie Inc., and Versatile Fabrication in Muskegon Heights.

“The team did a great job of turning this ship around,” said Andrie Specialized President Phil Andrie, who led the rescue tugboat. “Anytime these big ships are just sitting there, it’s big money. The captain left very happy.”

Andrie and Bensinger said that at no time was the 20-member Canadian crew on board the Catherine Desgagnes in any peril. But that doesn’t mean the rescue wasn’t dramatic for the Muskegon crew.

Andrie said within an hour of being called by Hogan, he was able to put together a four-member rescue crew on board the 75-foot Muskegon-based Meridith Ashton, a 2,100-horsepower tug.

“We had northwest winds at 25 knots and seas at 6-8 feet,” Andrie said. “We found it 20 miles off shore and drifting toward Muskegon with no power. It was pretty nasty.”

The Andrie crew hooked up to the drifting freighter with a 1,000-foot, 1 1/2-inch steel cable and began the slow trip back into the Muskegon Harbor.

“We considered this an emergency tow or we would not have gone out in 6-8-foot seas this time of the year,” Andrie said. “Any spray on the boat iced everything down.”

The tow line was shortened as the freighter entered the Muskegon pierheads, made it down the Muskegon Channel and into Muskegon Lake. From Bank Point Light to the B.C. Cobb Plant, the east end of Muskegon Lake has begun to freeze so the tug and its tow had to fight through the thin ice, Andrie said.

The vessel was secured by 7 p.m. at the downtown Mart Dock, and the metal works specialists at Versatile Fabrication began an overnight project. The ship’s problem was a malfunctioning fuel line at the engine’s manifold, Andrie said.

Versatile Fabrication was able to cast a new part and have it installed so the ship could continue to its next port, Windsor, Ontario. The Desgagnes will be hauling a load of grain from Windsor to Newfoundland before eventually being tied up for winter in Quebec City.

“We’ve not used Muskegon for these types of situations before, but needing help like this is always in the back of our minds,” Bensinger said, adding that Inter Ship has been the agent for owner Transport Desgagnes for the Canadian company’s movement of pig iron and other loads into southern Lake Michigan ports such as Chicago and Milwaukee.

The Catherine Desgagnes is a cargo ship built in New Castle, England, in 1961 and began operations in the Great Lakes and on the East Coast in 1985 by Desgagnes Transport. It can haul a maximum of 8,350 tons of materials in four holds, transporting everything from metals to grain.

Hogan said the rescue and repair of the Catherine Desgagnes is another feather in the Port of Muskegon’s cap.

“Muskegon is a deep-water port that can handle situations like this in rough-weather conditions,” Andrie said.

[yachtsmanwilly]

Green Bay ice breaking operations

12/17 - Green Bay, Wis. – The U.S. Coast Guard is conducting ice breaking operations in the waters of Green Bay. These operations will likely occur in some areas used by recreational users such as but not limited to the Fox River and lower Green Bay, Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal, Little Bay De Noc, and the entrance channel into Marinette and Menominee.






Early-season ice on Muskegon Lake creating issues for B. C. Cobb coal shipments

12/17 - Muskegon, Mich. – The coal-carrying Great Lakes freighter Buffalo came into an iced-over Muskegon Lake Monday morning, Dec. 16 with a load for the B.C. Cobb Generating Plant.

Early season ice on Muskegon Lake made it a bit difficult to get the Buffalo in position to unload at the Cobb dock on the far east end of the lake, according to Consumers Energy spokesman Roger Morgenstern.

Just before noon, Morgenstern said that the captain of the 635-foot Buffalo was attempting to turn the ship around in the ice-jammed lake to back into the Cobb plant slip. To assist, Andrie’s 75-foot tugboat Meridith Ashton was being sent to assist.

The Andrie tug crew has been busy late in the shipping season as it rescued a disabled freighter last week in Lake Michigan, bringing it to the Mart Dock on Muskegon Lake for repairs.

The Buffalo will deliver its load and return to Lake Michigan later Monday, Morgenstern said. The continued commercial shipping on Muskegon Lake creates a safety hazard for fishermen or others going out on the early-season ice, he added.

The Buffalo is not the last coal shipment planned for the Cobb plant, Morgenstern said. The 700-foot H. Lee White is expected to deliver two, 25,000-ton loads of coal before the end of the year. The tentative times of the White’s arrival are 9 p.m. Dec. 27 and 8 p.m. Jan. 1. However, in late season scheduling, ship arrivals can be off by many hours if not days due to weather conditions.

“Late arriving ships and early arriving winter weather has created a potential for safety hazards on the ice of Muskegon Lake,” Morgenstern said. “We are still shipping on Muskegon Lake and will be through Jan. 1. The public needs to keep this in mind if they are going out on the ice. We will keep the public updated as our shipping season comes to an end.”




2 Maid of the Mist vessels scrapped

12/17 - Two members of the famous Maid of the Mist fleet have been broken up for scrap. They were no longer needed for the Niagara River service when Hornblower Niagara Cruises secured the contract to carry passengers from the Canadian side of the river to the base of the Horseshoe Falls.

The name Maid of the Mist has been part of Niagara River history since 1846 when the first Maid of the Mist served as a ferry between the Canadian and American sides of Niagara Falls. When the Suspension Bridge opened, business declined. A new Maid of the Mist began a tourist service in 1854 but this was curtailed about 1860 due to economic factors and the outbreak of the American Civil War.

The service returned as the Maid of the Mist Steamboat Co. with the construction of a new Maid of the Mist in 1885. This wooden steamer was joined by the Maid of the Mist No. 2 in 1892. These vessels maintained the service until they were destroyed in a fire during fit out at their winter quarters in Niagara Falls on April 22, 1955.

Two replacement ships were built at Owen Sound and entered service in 1956. This new Maid of the Mist operated on the route until 1990. It was sold to another company in 1992 to provide excursion service at Toronto as Chippewa. Its fleet mate, Maid of the Mist II was retired in 1983. It had made history in 1960 with the rescue of 7-year old Roger Woodward who survived a plunge over Niagara Falls. This latter ship was sold to the United Pentecostal Church for missionary work on the Amazon River as El Refugio II.

Maid of the Mist III was added in 1972. This vessel operated until 1997 when it was replaced by a larger ship and scrapped.

Maid of the Mist IV and Maid of the Mist V were built by Hike Metal Products in Wheatley, Ontario, and added to the fleet in 1976 and 1983 respectively. They served the company well, but as the oldest and smallest members of the 2013 fleet, they would no longer be needed with the reduced demand in 2014.

When their season ended in October 2013, both ships were pulled out of the water and broken up for scrap by the Hamill Machine Co. at the old winter quarters at the base of the Niagara Gorge. The scrap steel was trucked up the hill for recycling. Both ships were completely dismantled before the end of November.

The surviving members of this historic operation are Maid of the Mist VI and Maid of the Mist VII. They are spending the winter ashore on the American side of the Niagara River and will re-enter the water to resume service in the spring of 2014. The former was built by Duratug of Port Dover, Ontario, in 1990 while the latter was completed by the Cartier Construction Co. at Belleville, Ontario, in 1997.

The recent dismantling of the two oldest Maids was an efficient and environmentally friendly project. It was carried out by Hamill Machine, which had serviced the vessels during their recent years of operation.



Obituary: Steve Gillotte

12/17 - Steven Frances Gillotte of Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., died December 6. As a young man, he left school to join the merchant marine, then sailed on the Great Lakes for six years on vessels such as the Myron C Taylor, A.F. Harvey, Homer D. Williams and August Ziesing. He retired from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Soo Locks reporting room, where he complied statistics on the vessels locking through. He also created the first American-Canadian currency exchange office outside of a bank, retired from that business, and then worked for Soo Locks Boat Tours.

Services will be held at a later date


In 1905, the Anchor Line steamer JUNIATA was launched at the yards of the American Shipbuilding Company in Cleveland, Ohio. The JUNIATA was the first large passenger boat built in Cleveland since the NORTH LAND and NORTH WEST. Today the JUNIATA exists as the National Historic Landmark MILWAUKEE CLIPPER in Muskegon, Mich.





Today in Great Lakes History - December 17

While breaking ice off Colchester Reef, Lake Erie on 17 December 1917, the HENRY CORT (steel propeller whaleback bulk freighter, 320 foot, 2,234 gross tons, built in 1892, at W. Superior, Wis., formerly a.) PILLSBURY) was in a collision with the MIDVALE (steel propeller bulk freighter, 580 foot, 8,271 gross tons, built in 1917, at Ashtabula, Ohio). The PILLSBURY sank in thirty feet of water 4 1/2 miles from Colchester Reef. Her crew walked across the ice to the MIDVALE. The wreck was located on 24 April 1918, four miles from its original position, with seven feet of water over her and raised later that year to be repaired.

C. L. AUSTIN was launched December 17, 1910, as a.) WILLIS L. KING (Hull#79) at Ecorse, Mich., by Great Lakes Engineering Works.

With an inexperienced Taiwanese crew, boiler problems and the collapse of Lock 7's west wall in the Welland Canal, the departure of SAVIC (CLIFFS VICTORY) was delayed until December 17, 1985, when she departed Chicago, Illinois, under her own power.

Paterson’s NEW QUEDOC sank at her winter moorings at Midland, Ont., on December 17, 1961, with a load of storage grain. The sinking was caused by the automatic sea valves that were accidentally opened.

The ROGERS CITY was laid up for the last time at Calcite, Mich., on December 17, 1981.

On December 17, 1955, in heavy fog, the B.F. AFFLECK collided head-on with her fleetmate HENRY PHIPPS in the Straits of Mackinac. Both vessels were damaged but were able to sail under their own power for repairs.

In 1905, the Anchor Line steamer JUNIATA was launched at the yards of the American Shipbuilding Company in Cleveland, Ohio. The JUNIATA was the first large passenger boat built in Cleveland since the NORTH LAND and NORTH WEST. Today the JUNIATA exists as the National Historic Landmark MILWAUKEE CLIPPER in Muskegon, Mich.

On 17 December 1875, the steamboat JENNISON of Captain Ganoe's line, which ran between Grand Rapids and Grand Haven, burned at Grand Rapids. She was laid up for the winter just below the city on the Grand River. She was insured for $12,000.

1957: The Great Lakes-built LAKE HEMLOCK foundered in Long Island Sound.

1964: The former T-2 tanker GOOD HOPE, operating as a bulk carrier, ran aground in a blizzard at Ulak Island, in the Aleutians, as d) SAN PATRICK. The ship had loaded wheat and cattle feed at Vancouver for Yokohama, Japan, and all on board perished. It had been a Seaway trader in 1962.

1972: THOMAS SCHULTE began Great Lakes trading in 1957 and returned through the Seaway in 1959. It was sailing as c) CAPE SABLE when it sank with the loss of 13 lives in a gale 100 miles west of La Corunna, Spain. The vessel was enroute from Antwerp, Belgium, to Algiers, Algeria, with general cargo when it went down.

1977: STADACONA (iii) went aground after clearing the Manitoulin Island community of Little Current with a cargo of ore pellets. The ship was stuck for several days.

[yachtsmanwilly]

Lake Michigan ships encounter early ice

12/18 - Green Bay, Wis. – The frigid start to December is causing concerns for the Port of Green Bay. Thick ice on the bay is threatening to shut down the shipping industry, much earlier than normal. Ships entering the Fox River these days are having to plow through the ice.

"Winter is here and early, and with that the ice is accumulating and accumulating to thicknesses that are causing some problems for the port," says Brown County Port Director Dean Haen, pointing out he can't remember such a frigid start to winter.

"I don't recall it ever being this early. We are having to have some ice breaker assistance to get in the last remaining vessels of the year."

Haen says ships can break through about 8 inches of ice on their own. But already, the ice is much thicker on the bay, which is why the shipping companies are hiring private companies to break up the ice. If they're unable to, the Coast Guard steps in. And that work isn't cheap.

"If the Coast Guard's doing it, it's on the taxpayer, if the private companies are doing it, those shipping lines are paying it, there's a cost," says Haen.

According to Haen, ship captains determine when the shipping season closes, which could be any day now. But with an $88 million a year industry benefiting every day ships can sail, vesselmen along the river are holding their breath.

"Everyone wants to get in their cargo and they're trying to get it in and if we do shut down a little earlier than normal, sometime before Christmas, they'll probably be itching to get started early next spring," says Haen.

In recent years, the shipping season has stayed open until mid-January. This year, that's highly unlikely.

WBAY TV


Lookback #31 – Seaway trader Tecun Uman lost on December 18, 1975

12/18 - The Belgian cargo carrier Tecun Uman was built at Tamise in 1963 and first came through the Seaway in 1969. The 318 foot, 3 inch long vessel also traveled inland in the early 1970s on charter to the Hamburg-Chicago Line.

Following a sale in 1975, the ship resumed trading as Imbros and was now registered in Cyprus. The vessel had a cargo of railway sleepers and was travelling from Mobile, Alabama, to Sept Iles, Quebec, when it encountered heavy seas about 250 miles east of Savannah, Georgia.

It last reported in 38-years ago today and then disappeared without a trace. The entire crew, of between 19 and 22 sailors, were all lost at sea.




Today in Great Lakes History - December 18

The 425-foot Finnish tanker KIISLA ran aground while transiting the North Entrance of Buffalo Harbor on the 29th of December 1989. The ship was inbound with xylene for the Noco Product Terminal in Tonawanda when it strayed from the navigation channel due to reduced visibility from heavy snow squalls and grounded near the #1 green buoy of the Black Rock Canal. She was towed off the rocks by tugboats from Buffalo and then tied up at the Burnette Trucking Dock (formerly the Penn Dixie Dock) on the Buffalo River for Coast Guard inspection. A diver found a 47-inch by 5-inch crack below the waterline at the #1 ballast tank, with a large rock firmly wedged in the outer hull plating, but with no damage to the inner hull or cargo tanks. The ship was cleared to head back to Sarnia to off-load her cargo before repairs could be made.

In 1921, 94 vessels were laid up at Buffalo with storage grain when a winter gale struck. The 96 mile-per-hour winds swept 21 vessels ashore and damaged 29 others. Three weeks were required to restore order to the Buffalo waterfront.

Canada Steamship Lines NANTICOKE (Hull#218) was launched December 18, 1979, at Collingwood, Ontario by Collingwood Shipyards Ltd.

The tug AMERICA freed the ore carrier IRVING S. OLDS in 1956, after the OLDS grounded entering the River Raisin from Lake Erie. The OLDS stuck at a 45-degree angle to the channel, while entering for winter lay up.

Canada Steamship lines GEORGIAN BAY (Hull#149) was launched during a snowstorm on December 18, 1953, at Collingwood, Ontario by Collingwood Shipyards Ltd.

JOHN T. HUTCHINSON was laid up for the last time December 18, 1981, at Cleveland, Ohio.

On December 18, 1921, gale force winds drove the CARMI A. THOMPSON ashore at Buffalo, New York where she was laid up with grain for winter storage. She ended up wedged between the LOUIS W. HILL and the MERTON E. FARR. The THOMPSON was released on January 5, 1922, but required the replacement of 156 hull plates before her return to service.

The Goodrich Transit Co.’s ALABAMA (Hull#36) was launched in 1909, at Manitowoc, Wisconsin, by Manitowoc Shipbuilding Co. Reduced to a barge in 1961.

On 18 December 1899, 115 (steel whaleback barge, 256 foot, 1,169 gross tons, built in 1891, at Superior, Wisconsin) was carrying iron ore in a storm on Lake Huron when she broke from her tow steamer well out in the lake. She went ashore five days later at Pic Island off Thunder Bay, Ontario, and broke up. Her crew was thought to be lost, but they showed up days later after a long trek through the wilderness.

On 18 December 1959, BRIDGEBUILDER X (propeller tug, 71 foot, 46 gross tons, built in 1911, at Lorain, Ohio) foundered in a storm while enroute from Sturgeon Bay to N. Fox Island on Lake Michigan. Two lives were lost. She had been built as the fish tug PITTSBURG. In 1939, she was converted to the excursion boat BIDE-A-WEE. Then she was converted to a construction tug for the building of the Mackinac Bridge and finally she was rebuilt in 1958, as a logging tug.

1909: Ice punctured the hull of the F.A. MEYER, formerly the J. EMORY OWEN, on Lake Erie while enroute from Boyne City, Michigan, to Buffalo with a cargo of lumber. The crew was rescued by the sailors aboard MAPLETON.

1915: The canaller PRINCE RUPERT, requisitioned for World War 1 service, was lost at sea enroute from Newport News, Virginia, to Trinidad with a cargo of coal. It foundered P: 34.40 N / 74.45 W.

1932: A fire in the coal bunker of the BROWN BEAVER, laid up at Toronto with a winter storage cargo of wheat, brought the Toronto Fire Department to extinguish the blaze.

1947: The tug EMERSON was Hull 5 at the Collingwood shipyard and completed in 1903. The ship stranded at Punta Sardegna, in the Maddalena Archipelago, as f) GIULIANOVA. The hull broke in two January 8, 1948, and sank.

1950: The tug SACHEM sank in Lake Erie and all 12 on board were lost. The hull was later located, upright on the bottom. It was refloated October 22, 1951, reconditioned and returned to service. The ship became c) DEREK E. in 1990.

1962: RIDGEFIELD, a Liberty ship that visited the Great Lakes in 1961 and 1962, ran aground at the east end of Grand Cayman Island in ballast on a voyage from Maracaibo, Venezuela, to the U.S. Gulf Coast. The hull was never removed and visible for years.

1968: The Canadian Coast Guard vessel GRENVILLE was trapped in an ice flow and rammed against the St. Louis Bridge along the Seaway. The crew was removed safely by stepping on to the bridge before the ship sank. It had been retrieving buoys. The hull received considerable ice damage over the winter but was refloated in June 1969, towed to Sorel and scrapped.

1975: TECUN UMAN visited the Seaway in 1969. It disappeared without a trace in heavy seas 250 miles east of Savannah, Georgia, enroute from Mobile, Alabama, to Port Cartier, Quebec, as b) IMBROS. All 22 on board were lost.

1985: FEDERAL ST. LAURENT (ii) collided with the Mercier Bridge in the Seaway with minor damage to both the ship and the structure. The vessel was scrapped at Chittagong, Bangladesh, as c) DORA in 2003.

[yachtsmanwilly]

Coast Guard cutter crew to break ice in Saginaw Bay channel, warns of unsafe ice conditions

12/19 - Detroit, Mich. – The crew of Coast Guard Cutter Bristol Bay is scheduled to break ice in the Saginaw Bay shipping channel starting at 8 a.m. Thursday and continuing into the evening. The crew of Bristol Bay, a 140-foot ice-breaking tug homeported in Detroit, will be conducting ice-breaking operations as part of Operation Coal Shovel, which is managed by Coast Guard Sector Detroit.

The crew will be escorting the tug Samuel de Champlain pushing the barge Innovation from the Saginaw Bay area to Essexville, Mich. The ice in these areas should be considered unstable and dangerous, and the Coast Guard is advising everyone to stay clear. The Samuel de Champlain will be departing 12 to 24 hours after its arrival in Essexville.

Operation Coal Shovel is the ice-breaking operation that is responsible for lakes St. Clair, Erie and Ontario, and the southern part of Lake Huron, as well as the St. Clair and Detroit river systems.

U.S. Coast Guard



Port Reports - December 19

Marquette, Mich. - Rod Burdick
Barge Lewis J. Kuber loaded ore at the Upper Harbor on Wednesday. The cargo, on her first visit of 2013, appeared to be loaded directly from the ore cars.

St. Marys River
Ice in the lower river east of Neebish Island caused trouble Wednesday morning for the upbound Pere Marquette 41 and tug Undaunted and Algosoo, which were being assisted by the CCGS Samuel Risley. The USCG icebreaker Mackinaw was in the lower liver Wednesday assisting the tugs Anglian Lady and Avenger IV with their barge. The salties Emilie and AK Brother were downbound.

Sturgeon Bay, Wis. - Jim Conlon
Sam Laud arrived at Bay Shipbuilding on Tuesday afternoon.

Sandusky & Marblehead, Ohio - Jim Spencer
The current late fall cold snap may be causing problems for Great Lakes freighters loading at Sandusky and Marblehead. It is common for cold weather to produce cargo that has become frozen clumps that are difficult to handle. The tug Dorothy Ann and barge Pathfinder continued loading at the LaFarge dock in downtown Marblehead Wednesday night. At Sandusky, the tug Victory and barge James L. Kuber also continued loading at the NS coal dock. Meanwhile, the Hon. Paul J. Martin -- originally posted for loading at Ashtabula -- remained on the hook east of Kelleys Island. She will apparently load at the NS dock.

Buffalo, N.Y. – Brian W.
The firetug Edward M. Cotter was out breaking ice on the Buffalo River Tuesday. The lake was already 4 degrees colder than normal for that time of year and plate ice was in place all around the harbor. This was enough to cause dredging operations to wrap up for the year and Luedtke's equipment was tied up at the Cargil Pool Elevator.

Toronto, Ont. - Jens Juhl
The tug barge combo Petite Forte/St Marys Cement is currently alongside at the Terminal 52 west wall. Toronto Island residents are in for an interim long haul commute to the city via bus and the airport ferry. The William Inglis was pulled out of service yesterday due to ice conditions and is presently being buttoned up for the winter. The ice-capable Ongiara is still high and dry in Toronto Drydock.


Navy christens new combat ship at Marinette Marine

12/19 - Marinette, Wis. – The U.S. Navy christened a new Littoral Combat Ship Wednesday during a ceremony at Marinette Marine's shipyard. The USS Milwaukee was launched into the Menominee River and christened by Sylvia Panetta, wife of former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.

Milwaukee is 388 feet long and equipped with four waterjet engines made to propel the ship to speeds of 40 knots. Littoral Combat Ships are speedy warships designed to fight immediately off shore.

Marinette Marine is in the middle of a contract to build 10 littoral combat ships for the U.S. Navy.

Tugs standing by with assistance were the Great Lakes Towing tug's Texas and Indiana from Green Bay and Basic Marine tugs Erika Kobasic and Nickelena from Escanaba.

Also during the late morning the new build r/v Sikuliaq was outbound for sea trials on Green Bay waters.


Lakes November limestone trade on track with last year

12/19 - Cleveland, Ohio – Shipments of limestone on the Great Lakes totaled 2.8 million tons in November, a virtual tie with a year ago. The November total was down 10 percent from the month’s long-term average, and 22 percent below October’s float of 3.6 million tons.

Shipments from U.S. ports totaled 2.3 million tons, a near perfect repeat of a year ago. Loadings at Canadian quarries dipped slightly to 505,000 tons.

Year-to-date the Lakes limestone trade stands at 26.4 million tons, an increase of one boatload compared to a year ago, but 5.6 percent below the long-term average for the January-November timeframe.

Lake Carriers Association


Wolverine ends power plant speculation in Rogers City

12/19 - Rogers City, Mich. – With federal greenhouse gas limits looming, Wolverine Power Cooperative has decided to cancel its plans to build a coal-fired power plant near Rogers City.

The cooperative announced its decision Tuesday morning, citing new and pending Environmental Protection Agency rules that make it nearly impossible to build a coal-fired power plant. Ken Bradstreet, governmental affairs consultant for the project, said he and Wolverine CEO Eric Baker told a group of supporters and elected officials that proposed limits on greenhouse gases make the project impractical.

"We wanted to see what the new proposed rules would be from the EPA," he said. "They came out this fall, and we had a chance to analyze them. It appeared to us that they were not going to allow a coal plant to be built. It's that simple."

The EPA is in the process of coming up with greenhouse gas limits for existing plants, and on Sept. 20 issued a proposed emissions limit of 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour of energy produced for new plants. While the proposal specifically exempts Wolverine's project, the cooperative would have to start construction before the rules are finalized to remain so. Otherwise, the plant couldn't meet the standard.

While Bradstreet wasn't sure when the proposed limit would be finalized, Wolverine's permit to build the plant expires in mid-2014. With all the steps required before breaking ground, the cooperative's time to make a decision had run out.

"With all the resources we've put into this, it doesn't seem like it's going to be allowed to happen," he said.

Wolverine first announced the project in 2006. The 600-megawatt plant would've burned mostly coal, supplemented with an oil refinery byproduct called petcoke, and up to 20 percent biomass. The proposed site was within Carmeuse Lime & Stone's Calcite quarry, and the plant would've used the quarry's limestone in its pollution controls.

The project had several setbacks, including the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality's initial denial of an air permit. That decision eventually was reversed, which led to a lawsuit from two environmental organizations in 2011. The DEQ and Wolverine won, but the project was held up again in 2012 after the EPA proposed mercury and air toxics standards the new plant couldn't meet.

After this year's revisions to those standards gave Wolverine a small chance to go ahead, the EPA delivered the final blow with its greenhouse gas standards.

The new EPA proposal mentions capturing carbon dioxide as the best way to meet greenhouse gas standards. From there, it could be stored underground, possibly in oil fields or geological formations.

These technologies are new and expensive, and adding carbon capture to Wolverine's plant would make it even more costly, Bradstreet said in January.

While a natural gas-fired power plant would fall within the new proposals, Rogers City is too far from any major pipeline, Bradstreet said. The cost of building a connection would make the project too expensive. Wolverine will have to look for other means to meet its power needs.

"You've got a limited number of options to work with," he said. "It appears that coal is out, and it appears that nuclear is very, very difficult. About the only avenue that is left is natural gas."

The project could've served as a major economic resource for the Rogers City area and enjoyed lots of local support, Bradstreet said. He personally believes regulations that prevent using coal for energy are short-sighted and make it difficult for the nation to become energy-independent.

"We are so grateful to the community, they've been outstanding for their support," Bradstreet said. "One of the hardest things about walking away from a project like this is, people have wanted it so much."

The Alpena News




Today in Great Lakes History - December 19

ASHLAND was launched December 19, 1942, as the L6-S-B1 class bulk carrier a.) CLARENCE B. RANDALL (Hull #523) at Ashtabula, Ohio, by Great Lakes Engineering Works. She laid up for the last time on the same day in 1979.

ELMGLEN ran aground December 19, 1989, near Johnson’s Point in the Munuscong Channel of the St. Marys River. Downbound, loaded with grain, she had been diverted to the Munuscong Channel because of difficulties encountered by her fleet mate BEECHGLEN in the ice-clogged West Neebish Channel.

Because of the increased demand for iron ore during the Korean conflict, more ships were needed and as a consequence the yards on the Great Lakes were operating at capacity. In December 1950, the Republic Steel Corp. bought 70 percent of Nicholson-Universal stock in order to purchase ships from the surplus fleet.

On 19 December 1927, ALEXANDRIA (wooden propeller freighter, 97 foot, 201 gross tons, built in 1902, at Chatham, Ontario) burned in the harbor of Little Current, Ontario, off the Government Dock, where her remains still lay.

1959: The British freighter ALBANO, which had made three trips through the newly opened Seaway earlier in the year, ran aground at Rethymo, Crete, in heavy weather and was not refloated until December 27. It received extensive hull and engine repairs and was back on the Great Lakes in 1960.

1980: The tanker LAKESHELL (III) went aground at Telegraph Rock, near Parry Sound, due to high winds and ice. The vessel was lightered to IMPERIAL SARNIA and released December 21.

1998: SHURA KOBER first came to the Great Lakes under the flag of the USSR in 1971. The vessel went missing on the Mediterranean north of Cyprus as d) MARELIE after sending out a distress call. It disappeared with all hands.

2006: SELNES came through the Seaway in the 1980s after having been inbound as a) RISNES in 1978. The ship went aground off Stafnes, Iceland, as c) WILSON MUGGA and the crew were rescued by helicopter. It was expected to be broken up on location but was salvaged and repaired. It returned to service as d) KARIM in 2007 and became f) RAKAN M. in 2011.

[yachtsmanwilly]

Last saltie of 2013 shipping season departs Port of Duluth-Superior

12/20 - Duluth, Minn. – The last oceangoing vessel to call on the Port of Duluth-Superior for the 2013 shipping season departed Thursday about 7 p.m. The Orsula arrived Sunday to load a total of nearly 22,000 metric tons (24,250 short tons) of durum wheat at the CHS and Gavilon grain terminals in Superior. Bound for Italy, the Orsula will be the last saltie to make a full transit this season of the 2,340-mile Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway system.

The 656-ft Orsula, flagged in the Marshall Islands, is operated by Fednav Limited, the largest dry-bulk shipping company in Canada. Based in Montreal, Fednav also had the honor of hosting the 2013 season’s first ship ceremony here in the Twin Ports aboard its Federal Hunter. [March 30 being the earliest arrival on record]. In both cases, Daniel’s Shipping Services served as local vessel agent.

Laker traffic will continue on the Great Lakes for a few more weeks as the Soo Locks (Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.), won’t officially close to vessel traffic until midnight on January 15. Those locks are scheduled to reopen for the 2014 shipping season on March 25, the same day as the Montreal-Lake Ontario and Welland Canal sections of the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Duluth Seaway Port Authority



Cold blast over Great Lakes has icebreakers busy

12/20 - A prolonged Arctic blast over the Great Lakes has icebreakers trying to keep ships moving through unusually thick ice. You don't need to close your eyes to imagine what it's like on one of Mike Ojard's 2,500-horsepower, 100-foot long ice breaking tugs in the Duluth-Superior harbor. The ice is already six to 18 inches thick.

“If you can imagine dragging a bunch of steel buckets through a rock pile continually, that's what the sound is like,” says Ojard, “and the shaking and the banging, and you've got a tugboat that weights 600 ton(s) and you're stopped just instantly. You're shot from one side to the other.”

He says one of his tugs even broke a rudder in the ice.

Coast Guard icebreakers and cutters Mackinaw and Biscayne Bay are working with Canadian cutters at the St. Mary's River, a bottleneck of boats connecting to Lake Superior. The ice has brought a few 1,000-foot-long super-carriers to a standstill.

Mathew Anderson is with the Coast Guard at Sault St. Marie, Michigan. “We've had a few that have gotten hung up in the turns, and that's primarily where it is, when they're trying to make a turn there's not room for the stern to come around in the ice. We've had icebreakers working in the lower river for the last few days.”

Meanwhile, Ojard, who's been in the business for a few decades, says this just doesn't happen this early. “There's ice in Lake [Superior]! When have you seen that at the first part of December? I can't remember this early.”

No more Arctic blasts are in the immediate forecast, but temperatures are expected to remain below freezing. While the St. Lawrence Seaway closes for the season on Christmas, the Great Lakes shipping season continues for another month.

Wisconsin Public Radio



Toronto Ferry shuts down

12/20 - Toronto, Ont. – The ferry between the Toronto Ferry Docks and the Toronto Islands is not operational, leaving approximately 700 residents to make alternate plans to get to shore.

The city says the William Inglis ferry is temporarily out of service, damaged by ice on Wednesday. Staff discovered "a very minor leak" in the hull of the ferry and ceased operation on Wednesday.

Toronto Ferry is telling riders to go through the island airport to reach land. A bus leaves on the hour to bring passengers to the ferry there.

But island resident Liz McClelland says it feels as though she is stranded, calling the service to the airport ferry very intermittent with delays as long as two hours.

"When the ferry isn't operational, like today, we have to rely on the ferry docks providing us with bus transportation through the island airport, which is always prone to delays because the bus has to wait for a break in plane take-offs and landings," she said.

There won't be a replacement ferry — the city is bringing out another vessel called the Ongiarais — to come out of dry dock until Thursday or Friday for normal service.

"Aside from shopping for groceries, today has impacted kids trying to get to school, people trying to get to work, attending appointments, and so on and so on," McClelland said.

CBC News


Early ice causing problems on Lake Michigan

12/20 - Chicago, Ill. – An earlier-than-normal freeze in the Chicago area is disrupting holiday plans for some people hoping to take a cruise on Lake Michigan. Low temperatures in recent weeks have quickened the annual chill of Lake Michigan, growing sheets of ice a month earlier than usual, disrupting holiday plans for local cruise lines and bringing winter chores for harbor masters and industrial shippers.

The early pockets of ice have prompted one Chicago cruise line to cancel its New Year's Eve fireworks cruise for the first time in five years. The company that manages harbors on the lakefront has started efforts to protect their docks from ice. And in the northern part of Lake Michigan, the Coast Guard has been busy breaking through ice, making sure shipping crews can make their scheduled deliveries.

As of Monday, more than 13 percent of Lake Michigan was covered by ice, compared with its icelessness this time last year, said George Leshkevich, a physical scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. Over the past five years, the average ice coverage on Lake Michigan around this time of year was closer to 2 percent, according to laboratory data.

In fact, it was not until Jan. 22 this year that ice cover compared with the amount on the lake now. The laboratory predicts that up to 62 percent of the Great Lakes will be frozen over this winter, above the long-term average of 55 percent.

"With this cold spell we've been having, ice we find has been forming earlier on the lakes than ... the past few years," Leshkevich said. "(Forecasts) are indicating a season with a little bit above normal ice cover."

In Chicago, Shoreline Sightseeing had to refund about 70 tickets for its New Year's Eve lake event, largely because the boats they would have used are small open-air vessels, tough for sightseers, said Amy Hartnett, Shoreline's director of sales and marketing.

While boats have been moved out of lakefront harbors since mid-November, there is work that must be done now to minimize damage to docks due to more than a foot of ice, said Scott Stevenson, vice president of Westrec Marinas, the company that manages Chicago's harbors. A Chicago Park District-owned tugboat, The Commissioner, runs up and down the channels in Burnham Harbor to break the ice and keep it from building up too much pressure on the docks. Other harbors have underwater tube systems around the docs that blow compressed air bubbles to break down the ice.

"We've found that by breaking up the ice, we have less damage," Stevenson said. "When ice moves around, it can be damaging."

The ice forming around Chicago pales in comparison with the problems that the Coast Guard has been battling farther north. In the upper Great Lakes, ice-cutting operations are making way for commercial vessels in and out of the Port of Green Bay, said Chief Petty Officer Alan Haraf of the Coast Guard's public affairs office.

The Coast Guard's annual operation to retrieve buoys and other navigational aids that would be damaged under the ice, usually between October and late December, was also more complicated this year because of the early freeze, said Petty Officer 3rd Class Christopher Yaw, a spokesman out of the Coast Guard's Cleveland office.

Clearing a path through the ice is vital for the U.S. shipping industry, which can move 20 percent of its annual total cargo during the ice season, or about 16 million to 18 million tons, said Glen Nekvasil, vice president of the Lake Carriers' Association, a trade group. Every year, 25 million to 35 million tons of iron ore are shipped to the lower end of Lake Michigan, particularly to the Indiana steel mills in Gary, Indiana Harbor and Burns Harbor.

The ice is getting formidable, particularly in the lower St. Marys River, which connects Lake Superior to the lower Great Lakes.

"Most of the iron ore and the biggest coal shipping ports are on Lake Superior, so if our ships can't get through the St. Mary's River, the steel mills won't get their iron ore and power plants won't get their coal," Nekvasil said.

Two Coast Guard icebreakers as well as one from Canada are working on the river, Nekvasil said.

"This is shaping up to be a very tough winter," he said. "We have had a number of mild winters recently, and one of our concerns has been that the crews on the icebreakers, with mild winters, they do not get the experience that they need.

"But they're doing a good job," Nekvasil said.

Chicago Tribune



Lookback #33 – Orna captured by pirates on December 20, 2010

12/20 - The Greek freighter Orna began Seaway trading in 2003 after having been a regular caller to the inland seas under four previous names. The ship was hijacked by pirates three years ago today while about 400 nautical miles northeast of the Seychelles. Rocket propelled grenades were fired and the ship was boarded, taken to Somalia and held for ransom.

Later, when payment was slow in coming, the ship was set ablaze. The vessel was finally released on October 29, 2012, after a $400,000 ransom was paid. However, the captain, chief engineer and four others were detained in an effort to obtain more money.

The 586 foot, 4 inch long vessel was built at Maizuru, Japan, in 1984 and first came through the Seaway as St. Cathariness in 1986. It was back as Asian Erie in July 1990, as Handy Laker in May 1992, was renamed Moor Laker at Chicago in June 1998 and became Orna in 2003.

Orna ran aground in the Seaway above the St. Lambert Lock due to an engine failure on May 5, 2006, while down bound. Tugs were needed to refloat the ship. It last traded into the Great Lakes in 2008 and, based on photos o its current condition, is ultimately bound for the scrapyard.



Today in Great Lakes History - December 20

On 20 December 1944, the icebreaker MACKINAW (WAGB-83) was commissioned in the U. S. Coast Guard.

The b.) SAMUEL MATHER, a.) WILLIAM MC LAUGHLIN was towed from Ashtabula, Ohio on December 20, 1975, to Port Colborne, Ontario where her boilers were converted to oil-fired burners by Herb Fraser & Associates and renamed c.) JOAN M. MC CULLOUGH (C.370162), renamed d.) BIRCHGLEN in 1982 and scrapped at Sydney, Nova Scotia in 1988.

Cleveland Cliffs steamer FRONTENAC's scrapping process was completed in Superior, Wisconsin on December 20, 1985.

The CRISPIN OGLEBAY of 1908, hauled her last cargo, a load of salt, into Rochester, New York on December 20, 1973, and then was laid up at Kingston, Ontario, for the winter.

The keel was laid for the PERE MARQUETTE 22 on December 20, 1923.

In 1910, the PERE MARQUETTE 18 was launched at South Chicago. She was the only Great Lakes carferry to be built in Chicago.

December 20, 1979 - The Interstate Commerce Commission approved the termination of the C&O's Milwaukee run. C&O ended the run the following year.

On 20 December 1867, ALIDA (wooden propeller packet/tug, 81-foot, 58 gross tons, built in 1856, at Saginaw, Michigan) had her boiler explode in the Saginaw River. She caught fire and burned to a total loss. This little packet/tug was the only steamer to regularly venture up the Saginaw River beyond the mouth of the Flint River.

On 20 December 1873, the Great Western ferry MICHIGAN was finally launched at the Jenkins yard in Walkerville, Ontario. Her launching was originally scheduled for 18 December, but she stuck on the ways. She was built for use on the Detroit River and her dimensions were 282 feet x 72 foot 6 inch beam.

1963: CORFU ISLAND, a Seaway trader in 1959, was wrecked in the Gulf of St. Lawrence at Grindstone Light, Magdalen Island. The engine broke down in heavy weather but all on board were saved.

1965: CASABLANCA went aground at Santo Antao Island, Cape Verde, and became a total loss. The small Dutch freighter had been a pre-Seaway trader in 1957.

1973: A fire broke out in the accommodation area of the MEDATLANTIC while enroute from Valencia, Spain, to Casablanca, Morocco. There was extensive damage. The ship was declared a total loss and broken up. It had been a Great Lakes trader as a) HELGA SMITH and b) MICHIGAN and was last inland in 1961.

1975: CARITA drifted ashore on Cape Breton Island after a power failure two days earlier. All on board were saved but the hull broke into four pieces. It was outbound from Thunder Bay with a cargo of peas and oats for Port au Spain, Trinidad, on its only trip to the Great Lakes.

1976: MEDUSA CHALLENGER stranded in Lake St. Clair when winds and ice pushed the ship aground.

1979: FLORES, a pre-Seaway trader in 1958, was laid up at Baia, Italy, with collision damage when it got loose and went aground during a Dec. 20-21 overnight storm and became a total loss

1985: The former Israeli freighter NAHARIYA grounded off Darien Rock, Trinidad, as f) GUAICAMACUTO and sank enroute from Venezuela to El Salvador. The ship had first come through the Seaway in 1962.

1986: The former HARALD RINDE first traded through the Seaway in 1968. It dragged anchors off Istanbul and went aground on this date as e) YAVUZ SELIM. The ship capsized Dec. 31 and became a total loss.

2005: FEDERAL KIVALINA got stuck in the ice at Lock 7 while downbound and tugs were needed to free the ship the next day.

2010: ORNA was hijacked on the Indian Ocean and taken to Somalia for ransom. The ship had been a Seaway trader as a) ST. CATHARINESS, b) ASIAN ERIE, c) HANDY LAKER, d) MOOR LAKER and e) ORNA. It was later set on fire by the pirates but eventually released when a ransom was paid. It was spotted anchored off Sharjah, on Nov. 20, 2012, and the after end appears to have been completely gutted by the blaze.