The way ships’ names work for me . . . they’re memorable! I recalled immediately having seen Orsula upbound on the St. Lawrence 10 months ago here. Here Orsula departed the grain docks for Montreal . . . 1344 miles and 129 hours away. Click here for some facts for Twin Ports, the mid-continent intermodal hub.
Walter J. McCarthy, 1000′ loa, had just come through the ship canal and was headed for the coal docks, I believe. Coal arrives here from out west, lots from Wyoming.
The aerial lift bridge can accommodate air draft of up to 180.’
Since I’m writing with hindsight, Ursula went to Montreal and is currently at sea, headed for Ravenna, Italia.
Click here to see Heritage Marine’s tug Nels J clearing out April ice….
Below, I don’t know the date of the outbound (down bound) steam ship, but
this Viking ship sailed here in 1926, with a crew of three humans and one dog, and started an exchange that continued until it was not last summer….
So here’s a research request: the Viking ship below, still in Duluth but undergoing restoration, traversed the Erie Canal on the way here. Has anyone ever seen photos of this ship in the Erie Canal? And while I’m making request, has anyone ever seen a photo of a new build military vessel–of which supposedly there were more than 400–headed eastbound on the Erie Canal during and before WW2?
All photos by Will Van Dorp, who took the two vintage photos on the walls of Grandma’s Saloon & Grille.
tugster: a waterblog 
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July 2, 2017 at 10:22 am
William Lafferty
The “undated” photograph shows one of the eighteen N3-S-A1 coastal freighters built by Walter Butler Shipbuilders, Inc., at Superior for the Maritime Commission, and then sent to Great Britain under “lend lease.” They were delivered between December 1942 and July 1943.
July 2, 2017 at 10:26 am
tugster
Thx, William, and have a happy independence day . . .
July 6, 2017 at 3:38 am
eastriver
Sailed in here in “HMS” Rose in the summer of 1994. We weren’t surprised at the crowd — tall ships very uncommon in the western Lakes in that era, due to absurd pilotage charges, amongst other things. We were all quite startled at the PA announcements in the canal, though!
A place full of surprises for blue-water mariners. We could fill our potable water tanks from *over the side* if we were more than 10 nm from land. Delicious water. Another was the marine weather forecast in the western lake, which proudly was broadcast from the National Weather Service, Fargo North Dakota! We all thought: “something wrong with this….”
I recall Duluth to be a very pleasant place to visit, but Superior, WI — across the St Louis River — was the preferred place for, ahem, “mariner’s entertainment.”