Thanks to Paul Strubeck 5

Here are some previous posts with photos from Paul.

If you want to see all my posts with photos of these wonderful towing machines, click here, the tag GLT.

Illinois is typical of this fleet.  Look at the riveted hull.  She’s still working, launched in 1914, before the US entered WW1!!!    Behind her is Idaho, 1931.  If you want an exemplar of American engineering and manufacturing, you need look no farther than this fleet.

New Jersey dates from 1924.    . . . . .       And Wisconsin is the oldest.  I’ll let you guess and you can read the answer below.

Wyoming . . .  1929.

Many thanks to Paul Strubeck.

1897!!  And she still works.  some day I hope she goes to the Smithsonian, as long as the Smithsonian establishes a wet display area.  And of course, the National Museum of the Great Lakes has already seen fit to add one of these to their wet display.  more on that later.   If I lived closer, I’d be there on November 30.

There’s a whole chapter on G-tugs in Tugboats of the Great Lakes by Franz A. VonRiedel.

 

CB8

This is Toledo to Detroit . . .and we start with Bessie B 

making her way out toward the mouth of the Maumee River.

Laid up . . . it’s Manistee.

This post is geographically arranged . . . otherwise, I’d put this first.  Tug Wisconsin used to be America, launched 1897!!

This ferry is in the Detroit River, crossing between Bois Blanc Island and Amherstburg, both in Ontario.

Wagenborg has lots of vessels, this one for the location appropriately named Americaborg.

 

CSL Tadoussac heads upstream and

H. Lee White, who has a museum named for him in Oswego . . .  down bound.

Here’s some info about Mr. White.

And off the stern of John G. Munson . . .

the new digs for Cheyenne, a former denizen of the sixth boro.

 

And closing it out behind Zug Island . . . it’s Missassagi, unloader stowed and minutes away from the next upbound trip.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

12 Lakers a

To start, these are boats, I’m told, not ships.  I first saw the type as a kid, reading a book that made an impression and crossing the St Lawrence on the way to the grandparents’ farm.

I’ve posted Great Lakes photos a fair number of times in the past few years, so I continue CYPHER series here with Manitowoc –a river-size self unloader–departing Cleveland for Milwaukee.

Alpena–1942–with the classic house-forward design transports cement.  I was thrilled to pass her late this summer on a magnificent Lake Huron afternoon.

Although you might not guess it, Algoma Harvester was built here half a world away from the Lakes.  To get to her trading waters, she crossed two oceans, and christened less than four years ago.  The selling point is that she carries more cargo than typically carried within the size parameters of a laker (Seawaymax), requires fewer crew, and exhausts cleaner.  I took the photo on the Welland.

Thunder Bay hails from the same river in China as Algoma Harvester and just a year earlier.  The photo was taken near Montreal in the South Shore Canal.

Tim S. Dool was built on a Canadian saltwater port in 1967.  I caught her here traversing the American Narrows on the St. Lawrence.

American Mariner was built in Wisconsin in 1979.   In the photo below she heads unbound on Lake St. Louis. I’ve seen her several times recently, here at night and here upbound St. Clair River.

Baie St. Paul is a slightly older, nearly identical Chinese built sister to Thunder Bay.

Algolake, launched 1977,  was among the boats built in the last decade of the Collingwood Shipyard.  

Lee R. Tregurtha, here down bound in Port Huron,  has to have among the most interesting history of any boat currently called a laker.  She was launched near Baltimore in 1942 as a T-3 tanker, traveled the saltwater world for two decades, and then came to the lakes.  I  also caught her loading on Huron earlier this year here.

Mississagi is another classic, having worked nearly 3/4 of a century on the Lakes.

Buffalo, 1978 Wisconsin built, and I have crossed paths lots recently, earlier this month here.  The photo below was taken near Mackinac;  you can see part of the bridge off her stern. Tug Buffalo from 1923, the one going to the highest bidder in five days, now stands to go to the bidder with $2600 on the barrelhead.

I’ll close this installment out with lake #12 in this post . . . .    Hon. James L. Oberstar, with steel mill structures in the background, has been transporting cargo on the lakes since the season of 1959.  She is truly a classic following that steering pole. See Oberstar in her contexts here, here, and really up close, personal, and almost criminally so for the diligent photographer, here.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.  More to come.

 

 

More Fishing Tugs 3

Harvey Hadland–a Brooklynite– and Bob Mackreath–a Long Islander–created the definitive site on fish tugs here . . . and Bob currently carries on Harvey’s legacy.  Next time I get up to Lake Superior, I must visit Bayfield and linger in the Apostle Islands, as the trip recorded here came with too many time constraints.

One part of the fish tug site discusses their evolution, here.  If you have Facebook, watch fish tugs break ice in pairs here.  Actually type “fish tugs” into YouTube, and you might get this.  Click here for my previous contributions to the topic.

I organize this starting from oldest and known, at least to me. Of course, many of you know more.  Here’s what Hadland/Mackreth say about Margaret below:  “Built by Peterson Boat Works in 1934, for Joe Schmidt, Algoma, Wis. The 45 ft. x 12 ft. wood hulled vessel was equipped with a Kahlenberg oil engine (size not known), installed at Algoma, and taken from another boat. Schmidt later sold her to Ed Zastrow, Algoma. Again sold to owners in Door County the boat was last operated out of Baileys Harbor, A severe storm in January 1975 resulted in heavy damage to the boat while at a dock at Baileys Harbor. Since that time the boat has been used as a centerpiece in several museum displays.”  Yup, Algoma WI is where I saw it,

along with what might have been a museum . . .

 

but when I walked around town, I found it again . . . on a mural.  To me, this says people in this town want this stories of this boat remembered.  It’s been years since I moseyed along the Michigan side, but Fishtown might be a place where remembrance of heritage fishing is even more elaborate.

Islander (1936) lives on as an on-terrafirma display in Sheboygan.  I was pressed for time when I arrived here, so I got no close-ups. For some Seger family accounts of Islander–even some poetry with the word Kahlenberg used–click here.

Oliver H. Smith, built right in Kewaunee WI,  where I saw it, dates from 1944 and appears to be still fishing.  I sought out Lake fish for meals on this trip and had great whitefish, walleye, and perch.

Nels J (1956?) is hoping to reopen in Duluth’s Canal Park, but as of late June, I couldn’t sample any of the wares . . .

Here’s a mystery boat.  It had just come in from a whitefish run and the crew was busy, and all they’d say was that it was a repurposed research boat.

It has some fish tug lines with a “convertible” afterdeck covering.  It matches up with none of the Great Lakes historical “science ships” here. Any help?

Here’s another Lake Superior commercial fishing vessel, but I can’t find Arlene A in the listings I know.  She has a look in common with the deadrise boats of the greater Chesapeake.

The fish tug nearest the sixth boro–I believe–is Eleanor D (1948), below, which worked out of Oswego from 1958 until 1978 and now on the hard at the H. Lee White Maritime Museum in Oswego.  Source of the photo below is this online Oswego history.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

If you’ve never tried lake fish, don’t hesitate.  Someone in Munising that thrills with under the water debris suggested I get my whitefish here, and I can vouch for the place and the fish.   That someone (and crew)  does a great job helping you see beneath the water.  If you want more in the clear waters, see Chris Doyal‘s work.

Random Tugs 203

except “random” here  just means in the order that I encountered them on my all-too-short gallivant around Wisconsin.

In Sturgeon Bay, I finally saw the 149′ x 27.8′ John Purves, built in Elizabeth NJ in 1919, definitely retired now but looking great as part of Door County Maritime Museum.  John P. Holland had some connections with Patterson and the shipyard in Elizabethport NJ–right across from Howland Hook terminal, as well, where the USN’s first series of submarines was built.  See some here (and scroll).

Stern to stern with Purves is Donny S, formerly ATA 230, G. W. Codrington, William P. Feeley, William W. Stender, and Mary Page Hannah.  She’s 135.5′ x 33.1′ and is said to hail from Cleveland.  She was building a Levingson Shipyard in Orange TX.

I gather she was once part of the Hannah Marine fleet, as in here.

Quite a number of Selvick tugs rafted up here as well:  right to left:  William Selvick, Jacquelyn Yvonne, Sharon M Selvick, Cameron, Susan L, and William C. Gaynor. … a bit too tightly packed for good photos.

Farther south in Kewaunee, WI, I stumbled upon Ludington, a 1943 Jakobson Oyster Bay tug just a month older than Nash, restored to Navy gray and part of the exhibit in Oswego NY’s H. Lee White Maritime Museum.  Lots of tugboats–current and older–in the sixth boro hail from Jakobson’s, now all gone.

In Milwaukee, I was fortunate to track down tug Wisconsin.  Now that might seen less than ordinary until you learn she dates from 1897 and still works!!  She’s gone through more names than there are Great Lakes but here she is.

Off her stern Minnesota and Superior (almost invisible) are rafted up.  The 1911 Minnesota is a year older than Urger but still profitable.  Superior was launched in 1912 in Manitowoc and still works in ship assist and lakes towing.

I’ll need some help on this one, high and dry just beyond Superior.  For some of the more GL tugs previously posted here, click here, here,  and here.

Joey D is a workboat boat, 60′ x 20′ launched 2012, built in Cleveland.

My guess is that this is the boat Joey D replaced, but that’s sheer conjecture.  It’s not conjecture that this bow’s seen some ice and made contact.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who’s eager to get back to the Great Lakes basin and see more.