Lake Loop 7: West Across the Top

American Integrity is one of 13 ore boats on the Great Lakes called the “thousand-footers,” whose length ranges from 1000′ to 1013′.  They represent the most recent upgrade in ore boat capacity.

She was launched in 1977.  The newest 1000-footer was Paul R. Tregurtha, launched in 1981.  As the fleet ages, are there discussions of building the next 1000-footer or another upgrade in capacity?  Maybe the next large investment should be in a super lock at the Soo.

Calumet, a boat I’ve crossed paths with an uncanny number of times recently, headed south after negotiating the Straits.

On the hard in St. Ignace, it’s an unidentified blue trap net boat and fish tug Richard E. 

I had to get a photo of this log truck northbound on the Mac.

A few miles west of the Bridge is St. Helena Light. 

Burns Harbor left White Shoal Light behind as

it headed for the Bridge and then Lake Superior.

 

Lansing Shoals Light is about halfway between the Bridge and the Garden Peninsula.

Closing out this post is Seul Choix (pronounced “say shwah”) Light.  This light appeared–with the gentleman who paints it and othersr–in this post from last December. 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

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.

 

Duluth Ship Canal 2

Around 1000 the other day, Walter J. McCarthy Jr. headed outbound through the Canal.   Let’s suppose she was loaded to capacity, 78,850 tons of Western coal.

Again . . . 1000′ x 105′ heads out into the lake.

I’m sure I heard the woman there say to her child, “Let’s wave at daddy.”

 

 

Power comes from four EMD 645 V-20 2-stroke diesels, spinning two four-blade 17.2′ VP props.

 

Below is intermodal transportation at its clearest.   American Integrity, same dimensions and power as McCarthy, has its 250′ boom rotated to port, away from loading gear.  Note the train that almost completely circles the coal pile, like a large snake.  Let’s assume the train is 100-cars long although there may be a few more, each car carrying 100 tons.  So it takes seven trains to fill one of these ships.

Later the same day, American Integrity heads out . . .

 

 

as lots of folks and gulls wait along the Canal  . . .

About 10 months ago I saw American Integrity discharging at the St. Clair Power plant in East China, MI.  It amazing in these next two pictures, how

1000′ foreshortens . . .

Around independence day, it’s appropriate somehow to be talking about american integrity . . .

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Not Jetster 2

Yesterday’s post left you in the air–quite literally–circling above Duluth with Beaver Air Tours, the busiest port on the Great Lakes, and passing over a set of Heritage Marine tugs.  Thanks to Lee Rust’s comment on yesterday’s post, I learned a fascinating story about one of the tugs, the 1908 Mount McKay.  Check it out here.   Here we’re flying west looking out toward the St. Louis River.

The pilot pointed out the Edward L. Ryerson, below on extended layup.  Click here for many more photos of this beauty, which began service in Manitowoc in the summer of 1960.  for many more photos and more history of “fast Eddie–capable of 19 kts!!–click here.  This blog has had a previous photo of Ryerson–assisted by Grouper– here.

 

Note the unusual mast-stack combo and the absence of self-unloading gear.

J. B. Ford–launched 1904–is now ending her days after serving them out here as a stationary storage facility.

As this link tells, she survived many storms, outlived all her fleet mates.  The stories of the generations of her crew . . . . I hope they’re not entirely lost.

That’s the Duluth Ship Canal, which I’ll talk about in a future post, and the Aerial Lift Bridge;  J. B. Ford’s scrapping is happening on the land upper right in this photo.

Circling over the Ship Canal, we look down at museum bulker William A. Irvin, named for a former president of US Steel.

Who can tally how many tons of ore she carried in her lifetime from 1938 until 1978 . . . .

 

Let’s head toward the St. Louis River from a different angle and get a closer look at the Arthur M. Anderson.  Click on this link for photos and info of the ordeal she and other lakers face in the December waning weeks of the navigation season.

Anderson has plied the lakes since 1952, and is often associated with the Edmund Fitzgerald, as the last to have contact with the Fitzgerald in the fateful storm of November 1975.

 

Can anyone identify this tugboat?

At the coal pile, it’s  American Integrity . . . I’ll add some closeups of her in tomorrow’s post.

American Integrity is exactly 1000′ x 105′ and with a 78,850 ton capacity,  a “super carrier” built in Sturgeon Bay WI and moving steel ingredients since 1978.

Closing out today’s post . . . we pass part of the Fraser Shipyard, founded by Alexander McDougall, father of “whalebacks” and much more, two of which are currently in very different states of repair in New York waters, the Interwaterways 101 aka Day Peckinpaugh–AND Interwaterways 105, whose current disposition can be seen at the same link as for the 101 . . . the Michigan in the graveyard on the Arthur Kill.

One of the tugs below is FSY  III . . . I suppose the other two are I and II?

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who hopes to return here near the end of the season.

Here’s more on the port and the lake aka  gichigami in Ojibwa.