Great Lakes Calendar — Winter 2003
~
The Great Lakes… 84% of the continent’s fresh water… a different story in every drop.
By Carol Johnson
Contributors: Rod Burdick, Kingsford, Michigan; Terry Beahen, Ottawa, Ontario; Ronald G. Bauer, Spring Lake, Michigan; Barbara Suetholz, Racine, Wisconsin; Louise Cooke, Lowville, New York; and Paul Petosky, Munising, Michigan.
JULY 2003
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed lifting some federal protections on the double-crested cormorant, in place since the 1970s. This action would allow Michigan and 23 other states to kill cormorants in areas where they damage fish and vegetation. The hookbilled diving birds eat a pound of fish a day, drive out other nesting birds, and their acid-laced droppings destroy vegetation around lakes and rivers. In the 1970s, surveys showed only 89 nesting pairs in North America; current estimates show 115,000 nesting pairs in the Great Lakes region alone.
When the $400,000, 38-foot yacht, Lily Pad ran aground, took on water and sank off Harbor Beach, Michigan, in Lake Huron, U.S. Coast Guard Station Harbor Beach responded to the yacht’s distress call and dispatched its 27-foot rescue boat. Meanwhile, a Good Samaritan in the area removed the two-person crew from the bow of the yacht, the only part of the boat above water. When diesel fuel from the yacht’s 300 gallons was spotted on the water, a commercial salvage company was called to secure the vessel’s fuel system before salvaging.
Many people went boating on Lake Erie to celebrate Independence Day, including the U.S. Coast Guard from Station Marblehead. However, fun and recreation were not on the Coast Guard agenda. Recreational boaters were not deterred by the threat of storms; but after skies opened and rain poured down, rescue calls poured into the Marblehead Station. Beginning at 2 P.M., the station received 16 distress calls within 90 minutes. Two Coast Guard boats were already underway when the storm hit. A third USCG rescue boat and two Coast Guard Auxiliary boats were dispatched, aided by other rescue agencies and Good Samaritans. The hour-long storm pretty well cleared boaters off the lake, though the Coast Guard had at least three more calls during their 16 hours on patrol over their 42 miles of coverage.
Independence Day weekend: Seven drownings in a three-hour period were reported along a three-mile stretch of Lake Michigan in the Warren Dunes State Park area, south of St. Joseph, Michigan, after 50 mph winds raked the area creating strong riptides and undercurrents. Several victims drowned while successfully rescuing a twelve-year-old boy. No lifeguards are posted at the four beaches where the drownings occurred. Red flags signaling swimmers to stay out of the water were ignored.
While small seiches (less than a foot high) are a daily occurrence on the Great Lakes, on July 5, a late-afternoon seiche on Lake Michigan dropped water levels several feet in the Racine, Wisconsin area. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration station in Lake Michigan waters off Milwaukee documented the seiche. A powerful front had passed through the area overnight, piling up water on the Michigan side of the lake where it raised water levels and created deadly rip currents.
During the museum ship William G. Mather’s Steam and Sails at Sunset benefit July 9, Cleveland’s Mayor Jane Campbell came aboard to sign a 40-year lease for the Mather to remain at the Ninth Street Pier berth — after ten long years of negotiations! Long-term plans call for the Mather museum to develop from a seasonal attraction into a year-round lakefront maritime museum. Current plans are for historic portions of the Mather, over half of the vessel, to remain a museum with improved exhibits on the history, science and culture of Great Lakes shipping. To provide future financial support, three currently-empty cargo holds may be renovated for educational and commercial activities.
Cleveland was one of the major stops for the summer tall ships visits on the Great Lakes. Seventeen tall ships arrived in port July 9 for a five-day visit. The Cleveland-based USCG cutter Neah Bay —water cannons spouting — led the four-mile long parade of vessels to open the event. Joining the parade were the Cleveland Fire Department boat Anthony J. Celebreeze II and the Buffalo, New York, fireboat Edward M. Cotter.
The Puffin, one of three new vessels operated by Canfornav and designated especially for operation in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway trade, made its first visit to the Port of Duluth/Superior in mid-July. The Antigua-flagged vessel, owned by Harren & Partner of Bremen, Germany, loaded 9,000 metric tons of wheat bound for Venezuela at Superior’s Cenex Harvest States facility. Canfornav, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Canadian Forest Navigation Company, Montreal, has a building program underway of 27,000-ton bulk vessels designed for Seaway and Great Lakes use built by China’s Wuhu Shipyard (all named for ducks). By end of 2004, Canfornav expects to have a fleet of 13 new ships in addition to the 25 “handy-size” vessels already under charter for Great Lakes service, making the company one of the largest carriers on the Great Lakes.
U.S. and Canadian rescue units were kept busy on lakes Ontario and Erie Saturday, July 12, when strong west winds and 8-to-14-foot waves surprised boaters between Ashtabula, Ohio, and Alexandria Bay, New York. Four people were left swimming when their houseboat sank near Oswego, New York. Several boaters went into the water near Erie, Pennsylvania, when their pleasure boat sank and others took an unplanned dip when their catamaran capsized. Two riders fell off jet skis near Alexandria Bay and were unable to remount. The Canadian Coast Guard rescued two people from the water near Pigeon Bay, Ontario, with spotting assistance from a USCG Air Station Detroit helicopter. Four more people were pulled from Lake Erie near Ashtabula. (Thirteen of the 14 rescued boaters were wearing lifejackets.)
Some progress was reported in plans for high-speed ferry service on Lake Michigan between Muskegon, Michigan, and Milwaukee by way of a $14.5 million federal loan guarantee. Business owners in Ludington, home of Lake Michigan Carferry Company’s Badger, are not convinced there is enough ferry business for both services to survive. Lake Express’ new $18.5 million ferry will make the crossing 90 minutes faster and to a larger city, Milwaukee (70 miles south of Manitowoc, Badger’s Wisconsin port). However, many people leave their cars in Manitowoc or Ludington to enjoy a round-trip, mini-cruise on the historic Badger. The Ludington area draws tourists with its excellent beaches, lighthouses, sand dunes, camping and picturesque state parks. Stay tuned for Round Two. (Editor’s note: My money’s on the Badger.)
“Shipbuilding — Lorain’s First Industry.” A bronze Ohio Historical Marker was dedicated July 13 by Black River Historical Society at the site of the former American Ship Building Company, which built 450 vessels during its 90-year run (1893–1983). About 25 former Amship employees, ranging in age from 53 to 87, attended the ceremony at the former shipyard site that now contains HarborWalk, a $400 million project of waterfront townhouses. Lorain’s economy “took a hit” when Amship and New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner moved the company’s work from Lorain to his other yard in Tampa, Florida. Steinbrenner declined the Society’s invitation to the marker dedication and did not respond to its request for a donation.
Two more classic straight-deckers appear to be headed for the scrap yard. Owned since July 2001 by Canada Steamship Lines, the Mapleglen and the Oakglen were at the wall at Montreal in mid-July with their names painted over, funnels painted white and all signs of CSL ownership removed. Both vessels sailed during the 2002 season.
A fixture in Two Harbors, Minnesota, for much of the last 107 years reopened for tours in August, after a two-year hiatus due to peeling lead paint. The crimson and yellow, historic steam tug, Edna G., recently underwent a five-week, $29,800 project to remove or seal the hazardous paint. Following a $90,000 overhaul at Fraser Shipyards in the early 1990s, volunteers spent $2,700 to restore her whistle in 2000. The Edna G. — retired in 1981 after the advent of bow thrusters and thousand footers, and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 — was the Great Lakes’ last operating steam tug.
Light but varying winds challenged 280 sailboats in the 97th Chicago-to-Mackinac yacht race. First boat to cross the finish line in the world’s longest annual freshwater race—and one of the most prestigious in the U.S.—was the new 77-foot Alchemy, which arrived at the Round Island lighthouse in 35 hours, 25 minutes and 17 seconds.
An alert crew on American Steamship Company’s American Mariner — and lifejackets — were credited with saving the lives of four fishermen who spent four hours in Lake Erie’s 72-degree water four miles off Ashtabula, Ohio, after their 18-foot fishing boat sank so abruptly they had no time to radio for help! The freighter’s crew spotted three men in the water, reported the sighting to the USCG Station Fairport and then altered course for the rescue. A USCG Station Ashtabula crew patrolling the area rescued the fourth man, a multiple sclerosis patient, who fortunately had been released from his wheelchair and was adrift in a lifejacket. The Coast Guard took all four men to Ashtabula where they were examined by EMS and released.
Mackinac State Historic Parks hosted the Campeau’s Company Encampment at Colonial Fort Michilimackinac in mid-July at Mackinaw City, Michigan. Re-enactors from throughout Michigan joined the 18th Century British “troops” already “stationed” at the National Historic Landmark. During the weekend, re-enactors portrayed both soldiers and civilians demonstrating many aspects of French Colonial life.
Two Holland, Michigan, companies have worked for eight months recycling a 90-by-150-foot barge near Holland’s Kollen Park. When complete, the barge/dry dock will have ten compartments in the hull and side tanks to fill with water and will be able to lift a vessel of up to four million pounds. After a vessel is floated over the sunken dry dock, electric motors will pump out 13,000 gallons a minute as the dock rises. When completed in fall 2003, the dry dock could be used to build and repair small vessels and perform Coast Guard inspections.
Seventeen tall ships moved on to the Maumee River in downtown Toledo, as part of the Ohio Bicentennial Celebration, to be joined by 13 steamboats, part of the Mid-West Steamboat Association. Despite perfect weather, officials reported disappointing ticket sales at 27,000, far less than the 60,000 to 100,000 anticipated. Those numbers don’t include thousands of riverside observers who did not pay the $15 admission fee, but watched the ships from afar. Difficulties in reaching the festival sites may have contributed to lower than expected attendance. The Cherry Street Bridge, undergoing extensive repairs, was open to pedestrian traffic only, while the Craig Bridge/I-280 was one-lane only in each direction because of construction underway for a new bridge.
The last steam turbine-powered vessel in the Algoma Central Marine fleet is headed out. The 730-foot Algosound’s owner is now listed as “Indian breakers” by Lloyds ship registry. Presently moored in Montreal with two other breaker-bound lakers (Mapleglen and Oakglen), it is unknown when she will be towed to her final destination. Laid-up for all of the 2001 and most of the 2002 seasons, Algosound last saw brief service during the late grain rush in October–December 2002.
The U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service has offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to the positive identification of a hoax caller alleged to have made more than 30 false Mayday calls and bomb threats directed at USCG Station Calumet Harbor, the Army Corps of Engineers O’Brien Lock and Dam, and commercial vessels on the Calumet River. The calls and threats were made between October 2002 and May 2003, usually between 3:00 P.M. and 10:00 P.M.
After undergoing repairs to her unloading boom, Lower Lakes Towing Company’s Calumet departed upbound from Sarnia, Ontario, July 18. A section of her self-unloader was damaged in early July during a severe thunderstorm at Marblehead, Ohio, when strong wind gusts moved the boom, causing it to strike the wharf.
Under pressure from environmentalists concerned that drilling could begin when a federal ban on drilling in the Great Lakes expires in 2005, Ohio’s Governor Robert Taft signed an executive order that will ban drilling for oil and gas under Ohio waters of Lake Erie.
Future visitors to the American Soo Locks in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, will find new paint, monitors and displays at the Visitors Center. The project is a cooperative effort between the Corps of Engineers and a local group, the Soo Locks Visitors Center Association, that includes the Chippewa County Historical Society, several Sault tourist attractions, the U.S. Coast Guard, Sault Tribe of the Chippewa Indians, Lake Superior State University, Sault city officials and the Sault Area Chamber of Commerce Convention and Visitors Bureau. Great Lakes Historical Society member Capt. John Wellington is president of the new association.
Canada Steamship Lines’ 730-foot Nanticoke made news again after a small section of her self-unloader tunnel belt caught fire July 21 while unloading at Cardinal, Ontario. The fire started while the Nanticoke was moving her corn cargo to the number three hold so the unloading arm of the grain elevator only had to dip into one hold. The crew quickly extinguished the blaze and a contractor was on the scene to replace a three-foot section of the belt. Unloading continued during the repair by moving the vessel up and down the dock.
USCG cutter Neah Bay — homeport Cleveland — sailed July 21 for Boston and New York for a three-month deployment. The 140-foot cutter will escort “high interest” vessels, such as liquefied natural gas carriers, as part of homeland security action. The Neah Bay will also serve as harbor commander, controlling Coast Guard safety and security operations in Boston and New York.
Readers with access to the Internet can now watch passing lakers and ocean-going freighters, motor and sailboats, rowing shells, tall ships and water conditions on the Detroit River via computer. The Great Lakes Maritime Institute and Dossin Great Lakes Museum have installed a web camera streaming live video atop the William Clay Ford pilothouse on Detroit’s Belle Isle. The Detroit River Watch camera is interactive and control access is available to viewers to actually follow and zoom in on a passing vessel. www.boatnerd.com/livecam
First of the 259 entries across the finish line in the 79th Port Huron/Mackinac sailboat race was the 60-foot trimaran Earth Voyager that beat its 2001 time by 45 minutes, finishing in 23 hours, 44 minutes and 56 seconds. (Earth Voyager did not participate in the 2002 race after suffering serious damage when a derailed freight train plowed into a warehouse where she was stored.) The monohulled Alchemy finished second breaking Sassy’s 1984 elapsed time record for a mono-hull. One of the fastest and smoothest Port Huron/Mackinac races ended when the 35-foot Allure arrived, six hours after the finish line had been dismantled. Allure’s arrival time assured her the dubious honor of the Pickle Boat Trophy.
The missile cruiser USS Little Rock arrived at her new home in Buffalo’s Naval Park where she joined the destroyer Sullivan and attack submarine Croaker in a new basin. The Little Rock was moved the 1,000 feet from her home on the Buffalo River July 22, with the Great Lakes Towing tug New Jersey pulling on her bow and the tug Washington and Bidco tugs Ruby and Jacklyn pushing at her stern. This was her first move since arriving to become a museum ship in 1976. Because Little Rock was stuck in a build-up of bottom silt, the move was delayed for months while extra dredging was done to float her free and a channel dug from her old dock to the new basin facility.
Heavy rains and upriver flooding stopped traffic on the Cuyahoga River at Cleveland as the swift current forced vessels to dock, blocking the river for several days. The tug Invincible and barge McKee Sons encountered the unusually strong current while upbound July 22, but the crew was able to tie up at the old grain dock just upriver from the Center Street Bridge, blocking traffic for any other commercial vessels on the river. The Southdown Conquest was trapped and unable to depart after unloading while the Calumet, scheduled to unload, was diverted to another port. The tug Curly B. and barge, were forced to tie up near the McKee Sons. The following day, the tug Mississippi was unsuccessful in an attempt to assist the McKee Sons to move upriver to the Osborne Dock. The river remained above flood stage with more rain forecasted.
You know it is going to be “one of those days” when you arrive for work at 5:30 A.M. and your job site has disappeared! So it was for the crew of the Miller Boat Lines ferry, William Market, supposedly safely docked at Put-in-Bay, South Bass Island. A second company ferry was still tucked in next to its pier, but untied. A Miller crew located the errant ferry floating undamaged about a mile away and crewed her back home. The ferries had been tied up after the last run at 10 P.M. and were reported secure by village police at 12:15 A.M. While no damage was done to either of the 96-foot ferries, the company intends to prosecute if they can find the miscreants responsible. To prevent future incidents, Miller officials plan to hire a full-time watchman and install security lights, fences, motion detectors and remote cameras.
The SS City of Milwaukee, the last unaltered, traditional Great Lakes railroad car ferry, has received a $1.3 million Department of Agriculture Rural Development Loan for her continuing care, development of a maritime museum and acquisition of 1,100 feet of Manistee Lake waterfront property, including the Moonlite Motel and Marina. The vessel’s new mooring site is near U.S. 31, the major highway through Manistee, Michigan. Site development will include dredging, sheet piling and mooring bollards for securing the boat. The existing Moonlite Marina will be redesigned around the ferry, creating a total of 56 slips to provide dockage for seasonal and transient boaters. The motel will provide year-round lodging to complement the vessel’s lodging facilities. During summer 2003, the City of Milwaukee will undergo further restoration and be painted in its original 1931 colors to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Grand Trunk Railroad Lake Michigan ferries.
During Grand Haven’s Coast Guard Festival, Coast Guard officials and the community honored the 60th anniversary of the sinking of the Coast Guard cutter Escanaba on June 13, 1943. A memorial service at Escanaba Park paid tribute to the 101 men who died with her when she exploded and sank, probably from an enemy torpedo while escorting a convoy to St. John’s Newfoundland. One of two survivors, Raymond O’Malley, watched officials unveil a granite plaque that bears the names of the 103 crewmembers. The 156-foot Escanaba was commissioned on November 23, 1932, in Grand Haven and stationed there until she was assigned to Greenland for escort duty in 1941.
This annual Grand Haven, Michigan, event felt the influence of heightened security restraints aboard the participating Coast Guard vessels, the icebreaker Mackinaw, the icebreaking tug Biscayne Bay and the buoy tender Buckthorn. Visitors to the vessels were not allowed to board carrying purses, backpacks or bags of any kind. There were no open houses, with all visitors escorted by Coast Guard personnel while aboard the ships.
How the USCG cutter Katmai Bay spent her summer vacation: Scheduled to participate in several homeland security activities, she left her home base at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, for a five-week tour. The Katmai Bay took part in the Buffalo Water Festival, visited Muskegon for that city’s tall ships festival and took part in Chicago’s Air and Water Show where she was to serve as an offshore visual reference point for a demonstration by the Thunderbirds, the U.S. Air Force aerial team. She visited several other ports and was expected to conduct patrol work and training exercises before returning to the Sault in September.
A severe thunderstorm on July 29 caused a power outage at the Iroquois Lock on the St. Lawrence Seaway. Unfortunately, the downbound Algoma Central Marine tanker, Algosar, was in the lock at the time. And there she sat, locked between the powerless gates for eleven and a half hours before power was restored.
According to the Army Corps of Engineers, end-of-July tonnage totals for the Great Lakes shipping season lagged behind the 2002 season. Overall tonnage through the Soo Locks was down by eleven percent. Locks totals show U.S.-flagged tonnage was down four percent from last year, but tonnage in Canadian vessels trading into Lake Superior was off by 27 percent compared to last season with saltwater tonnage down by 37 percent. The Locks figures are consistent with tonnage lakes-wide.
The Quedoc, retired bulk freighter formerly owned by N. M. Paterson and Sons, was moved into position near Algoma Steel in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, so the scrapping process can begin. Her fleet mate, Vandoc, met the same fate in the same berth in summer 2002. The Quedoc was built in 1965 and sailed for Halco as the Beavercliffe Hall. She has been laid up at Thunder Bay since 1991.
***
