CB 2019 H

Today’s post takes us from Port Colborne to Cleveland.

I’ll do another post about the MRC yard later.  You can click here to see what these two looked like last year.

Algorail is nearly gone and work has already begun on Algoway.

At the Buffalo breakwater, Kathy Lynn was standing by with barge to receive concrete rubble, I think.

NACC Argonaut departs the Buffalo River for Bath, ON.

Manitoulin heads west.

Paul L. Luedtke tows scow #70. Is that Ashtabula in the background?

GL Cleveland assists barge Delaware out of the Cuyahoga…

until Calusa Coast clears the RR bridge and Cleveland returns to the barn.

 

 

All photos Will Van Dorp

 

CB6

MRC is located on the east side of the entrance to the Welland Canal.  This was a part of the trip I was eager to see. I recall seeing English River for as long as I’ve taken photos on the Lakes.  Paul H. Townsend I first saw here.

Townsend dates from 1945, and

English River  . . . from 1961. Here’s a post I did on her 10 years ago.

 

Marcoux Princess of Acadia arrived here on a towline from the Maritimes.  Click here for photos of her on the Saint Lawrence a year and a half ago.

 

Doubled up at the south end of the scrap yard were Algorail and Algoway, launched in 1968 and 1972, respectively.

 

Algoway on a towline was featured here.  This is the first post that includes Algorail.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Algoway Goes Away

She was still self-propelled and earning cargo credit in September 5, 2017, when I saw her near Mackinac Island . . .

 

Ditto two days later in windsor and a bit later

she was running down bound past Wyandotte,

allowing me a close-up of her oxidation.

But today, thanks to Fred Miller II for these photos, she’s down bound again, but behind a tow line of Evans McKeil, with

tail steering provided by the iconic Cheyenne.

Many thanks to Fred for the last two photos.  All others by Will Van Dorp.

How about some irony:  Evans McKeil, shown here n Montreal in October 2017 with barge Metis,

was built in Balboa, Panama in 1936!!  Algoway‘s keel was laid in 1972 in Collingwood, and she’s headed out for scrapping in Turkey.

Cheyenne has appeared on this blog many, many times, most recently after I caught her in the Oswego River in September 2017 as she headed for Detroit.

 

 

 

12 Lakers b

Are you still making calendars?  Here’s another set of 12 candidates, if my count is right.

January could be American Integrity, a product of Sturgeon Bay, WI, 1000′ loa x 105′ and when loaded and photographed from this angle, she looks impossibly long.  Her size keeps her confined to the four upper lakes, being way too large for the Welland Canal.

Since these are two of the same vessel, one could be the inset.  This shot of American Integrity discharging coal at a power plant in East China, MI, seems to shrink her.

Radcliffe R. Lattimer has truly been around since her launch in mid-1978.  Besides the usual plethora of Great Lakes ports, she’s worked between Canada and the Caribbean, been taken on a five-month tow to China for a new forebody, and made trips on the lower Mississippi and Hudson.  I took this photo just south of Port Huron.

Here Arthur M. Anderson waits to load at the docks in Duluth.  I’d love to hear an estimate of tons of bulk cargo she’s transported since her launch in 1952.  For many, Anderson will forever be remembered as the last vessel to be in contact with the Edmund Fitzgerald in November 1975.

Here’s Whitefish Bay upstream from Montreal.  Click here to see her and fleet mate Baie Comeau christened side by side at the Chengxi Shipyard in Jianyin, China, in November 2012.

Cedarglen is another laker that has seen major design changes in its superstructure, having first launched in 1959 in Germany with the bridge midships.  She has the same bridge.  Down bound here near Ogdensburg NY, she’s worked on the Great Lakes since 1979.

Walter J.  McCarthy Jr., here down bound on Lake Superior,  is another of the thirteen 1000′ boats working the upper four lakes.

Kaye E. Barker has been working since 1952, here in Lake St. Clair down bound.  That’s the tall parts of Detroit in the distance.

Algoma Integrity was launched in 2009 as Gypsum Integrity.

Cason J. Callaway is another 1952 ship, here discharging cargo in Detroit.

Algoway was launched 1977.  Will she be there for the 2018 season?

So from this angle you might think this too will be a laker . . . ., right?

She once was of the same class as Callaway and Anderson above, but .. . between end of the 2007 season and the beginning of the 2008, she was converted to a barge and married to the tug Victory.

Victory was built in 1980.

And to close out the mosaic that is the December page on our hypothetical Lake 2 calendar, it’s a close up of Victory at the elevator in Maumee OH.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who believes that the number of single hulled lakers will decrease as ATB design becomes predominant.

 

Gearless

. . . meaning lacking self-unloading gear, which makes these vessels less versatile.  Manitoba was in exactly the same location–and similarly high in the water–a year ago when I was here.  With her traditional “‘house forward” design, she’s fearless and called a straight decker–having nothing but holds between the ‘house and the engine compartment .

Ditto Ojibway, only slightly younger than I am,

with some quite serious lock, ice, and dock rash.

Contrast them with Algoway, traditional design but with self-unloading gear.

Tim S. Dool, although gearless is generally not considered –as I understand it–a straight decker because it has its ‘house aft.

And what an attractive rake the forward portion of this house has.

Built in 1967, she’s starting to show some age,

on her graceful lines.

Finally, one more gearless vessel, Spruceglen.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who is grateful to boatnerd for the linked info.  Soon it’ll be time to order your new KYS “boat watching bible.” 

 

Random Ships *6

Off in the distance, I believe those lights are Greys Reef and Skillagalee . . . and the

ship is another 1000-footer named for an Indiana port.  Maybe it’s the time of day, but I think I see the iron ore dust on the white paint.

Getting back to my invented  TTT unit (twenty-ton trailer), she has the capacity of 3942.5 trucks off the road.

Algoway (1972) is another appropriate -sized laker, serving ports otherwise possibly inaccessible, and replacing 1200 trucks.

Here she passes through the Round Island Channel, eastbound.

Notice the hatch in the hull below the stack?

An engineer taking some fresh air?

American Spirit . . .  another 1000-footer . .. has a capacity equal to 3120 TTT.  Imagine having all those trucks on the highways between the mines and the steel mills 500+ to the south!

Anyone know how many tons of cargo these boats lug in a season?

Philip R. Clarke, 1265 TTTs.

I do love the paint scheme of USS Great Lakes fleet.

James R. Barker, 3165 TTT.

She’s been running for 41 years on the lakes.

 

And as James R. Barker disappears in the direction of the Soo and Lake Superior, Hon. James L. Oberstar (1550 TTT) heads for the steel mills.

Here’s a list of the 1000-footers on the Great Lakes

American Century

American Integrity

American Spirit

Burns Harbor

Edgar B. Speer

Edwin H. Gott

Indiana Harbor

James R. Barker

Mesabi Miner

Paul R. Tregurtha

Presque Isle ITB

Stewart J. Cort

Walter J, McCarthy Jr.

For an alphabetical listing of these Great Lakes-locked vessels, check out Dick Lund’s page.

All photos here by Will Van Dorp.