Great Lakes Shipping History

[Foggy]

The Michipicoten is expected to undergo permanent repairs ...

Excellent. She's not gonna be scrapped.

[northland10]

The Michipicoten is expected to undergo permanent repairs ...

Excellent. She's not gonna be scrapped.

Lower Lakes only has 5 self-unloaders (Candian-flagged), and with the Cuyahoga laid up and possibly done for, scrapping another one would not be helpful to capacity.

[Foggy]

Still, that's an old ship and will probably crack somewhere else in the not-too-distant future. I know they've inspected her, but all that stuff above about how steel can ripen and get brittle after so many years of flexing is still true. It will be interesting to follow up on her.

[northland10]

The thread needs some thematic music.

[RTH10260]

[Foggy]

I like that narrator. Good information, no frills. I hope they can fix her up and get her back in service.

[RTH10260]

[RTH10260]

[Foggy]

That's heavy, man.

A very heavy piece of Great Lakes shipping history relocates back to Sturgeon Bay

Anchors are raised (weighed - Ed.) and anchors are dropped around Door County all summer long, but this anchor raising (weighing) and dropping holds more significance than usual.

That's because it's the historic 1,000-pound anchor from the Oak Leaf, a schooner-turned-barge that had a career of at least 54 years in the Great Lakes shipping industry before it sank off Bullhead Point in Sturgeon Bay in 1928. The anchor is being moved from its previous place of display outside the Eagle Bluff Lighthouse museum in Peninsula State Park to Bullhead Point, a small spit of land jutting into the Sturgeon Bay channel which is now on the National Register of Historic Places as an Historical and Archaeological District.

The Oak Leaf was built as a three-masted, 130-foot-long schooner in 1866 in Cleveland and carried bulk commodities such as grain, lumber and coal across the Great Lakes. It went through several owners, which its listing on the Wisconsin Shipwrecks website says is typical of commercial ships of the day, and conversion to a barge in 1891 that added 30 feet to its length before the Sturgeon Bay Stone Co. bought the vessel in 1906, after which the historical society said it played a significant role in the local stone industry.

The Oak Leaf was abandoned at Sturgeon Bay Stone Co.'s Bullhead Point wharf in 1928, along with stone company barges Ida Corning and Empire State, but the Wisconsin Shipwrecks site says it's not clear when the Oak Leaf went out of service. The site notes the last time it was mentioned as a working stone barge by the Door County Advocate was in 1920, a time when the newspaper frequently reported on the comings and goings of local working ships.

[much ado]

The Michipicoten is floating again, but no definite word on her future...

The Michipicoten is Floating, The Repair of The 13 Foot Crack Seems to be Finished.

[Foggy]

Yanno, I spent most of my adult life without thinking about The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. I knew there was a song. I heard it a few times. I knew it was about some big ship that sank in Lake Superior. I lived to be 70 before I paid any real attention to it.

It wasn't a part of my life, heck, I've only ever seen any of the Great Lakes once, in 2015. I'm a saltwater kinda dude, and I hear the bodysurfing in the Great Lakes is zero stars, would not recommend.

But then I started paying attention to this thread, and I started playing the song on Alexa, and now it's a regular earworm, and I can tell you all the stupid stuff in the lyrics compared to what really happened on my brother's twentieth birthday up there in the ice water mansion. No, the captain didn't wire in there was water comin' in, and the good ship and crew was in peril. They hardly use wires to communicate at all on the Great Lakes ships.

So is the Michi back in service? That would be pretty cool.

[northland10]

So is the Michi back in service? That would be pretty cool.

The latest word is she failed her inspection and may be scrapped.

[northland10]

If Michi is down for the count, this leaves Rand down to 3 Canadian flagged ships (it has more US-flagged ones). The Cuyahoga appears to still be out after taking part in its namesake's favorite activity (burn baby burn), twice in one year.

Rand Logistics may have some issues possibly caused by financial issues (partially by the Canadian dollar drops), leading to deferred maintenance, an attempt to catch up, and bankruptcy. Oh yeah, they were bought out of bankruptcy by private equity and have since been sold to other private equity firms.

Ship emergency on Lake Superior is latest safety mishap for Great Lakes freighter operator
https://boatnerd.com/boatnerd-news-july-12-2024/

One Rand ship caught fire in Lake Erie in May 2023 and then burned again while docked in Ashtabula, Ohio, in March.

Two weeks later, another Rand vessel hit a navigational aid near Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., shutting down traffic in a vital shipping artery for 40 hours. Yet another Rand ship grounded near Detroit in November.

The U.S. Coast Guard deemed two other groundings by Rand ships in the past two years as “serious marine incidents.” And last summer, a Rand-owned ship leaked 1,500 gallons of diesel fuel into Lake Michigan after a hull breach in a fuel tank.

“That is a lot of incidents in a short time,” said Roger LeLievre, president of the Marine Historical Society of Detroit and publisher of “Know Your Ships,” an annual Great Lakes shipping guide.

[Foggy]

... publisher of “Know Your Ships,” an annual Great Lakes shipping guide.

Oh, that's a fun site - https://www.knowyourships.com/





Whoa, the guide is only $19.95, or ... y'know ... $89.99 Canadian.

The vessels that appear in Know Your Ships show the powerful economic engine of Great Lakes shipping. The book also explains how saltwater vessels sail across the oceans directly into the heart of North America. Recently, we have focused on an important aspect of industry that is just as important as the ships - our people. Hardworking men and women make our industry go, and we’ve barely scratched the surface.

Do you see? Do you see how you are, making me get all fascinated by stupid Great Lakes shipping? Next thing you know I'll probably buy the guide!

[Frater I*I]

Whoa, the guide is only $19.95, or ... y'know ... $89.99 Canadian.


:

That's because they use that Monopoly money up there in Canada....