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The Great Lakes… 84% of the continent’s fresh water… a different story in every drop.

By William E. (Bill) Bardelmeier

During the Korean War, I served with a fine Chief Petty Officer who had more gold braid stretching up his arm than a four star admiral. He started earning all those gold “hash marks” during the infancy of naval aviation. Chief Dauphineous’ specialty was re-covering fabric wings. When President Roosevelt sent the newly re-fitted Old Ironsides around the entire U.S. coastline in the early 1930s to be seen by the school children who had donated the thousands of dimes for the refit, “Dau” was assigned as sailmaker on the USS Constitution.

By the time of the Korean War, Dau was about ready to “drop anchor” for good. When he encountered some young officer or petty officer with an inflated idea of his “seafaring saltiness”, Dau would find an opportune time and place while speaking to a third party (but always well within earshot of his target) … to say “Well, when I sailed in the Constitution, ….we did it this way … or that.” Seldom could anyone top Dau’s sea stories.

I might aspire to emulate old Dau, because there aren’t many experienced hand-fired coal passers and firemen still around today. Having observed the avid enthusiasm and dedication of Great Lakes “boatnerds,” I would like to describe — for the record — the fire room watch that was stood on many Lakers in the first 45 years of the 20th Century.

During my school and college years (1942–1947), I worked summers in all three departments on board Lakers. My career began with a brief stint as a deckhand on the Troy H. Browning in 1942 (Off. No. 86610), when I received my seaman’s papers. I began the summer of 1943 as porter on the A.T. Kinney (Off. No. 204864). However, the Steward shortly promoted me to second cook announcing to the master that he was sick and tired of assistants who “hit the bottle and missed ship.” The master wisely but heatedly objected, “We can’t have schoolboys who will leave in September as second cook!” But the steward was adamant and the captain reluctantly backed down. In addition to being ship’s baker, the second cook cleaned the captain’s stateroom, changed linen and made up his bed. On my final day before debarking in the fall, I “shorted” the sheets on his bunk to show appreciation for his support. Aboard the A.T. Kinney I learned to bake cake and to solo prepare breakfasts for a hungry crew. Stewards were

privileged to sleep-in at breakfast and second cooks with the help of two porters did it all. As a result I kept my hand in at cooking for the next 60 years.

I made a brief trip along with a school chum who had just gotten his papers aboard Myron C. Taylor (Off. No. 228960) and the new John Hulst (Off. No. 237380) as coal passer. We both got back to Lake Erie just as classes resumed.

In 1944, I had worked as coal passer aboard the John Manuel (Off. No. 207448) during a short window after school graduation before reporting to the U.S. Navy officer training program. In 1946, I was discharged form the Navy having crammed three years of college credits into just 24 months! Within two weeks of my Navy discharge, I had a job as coal passer on the Pioneer (Off. No. 203941) John McDermid, Master. That summer (1946), an aggressive drive was launched to organize Lakes sailors into the National Maritime Union. I stayed on and became fireman during the strike. Men were scarce and the steamship companies desperate, so I got paid both salaries as coal passer and as fireman. It was hard work but that fall I went back to college with some money for a change.

In June 1947, I graduated from Yale and applied for and was given a commission in the “regular” Navy. I had 30 days before I was due to report to a destroyer, so I signed on as deckhand on Boland’s old Consumers Power (Off. No. 207361) just to get back on the Lakes. I didn’t reveal my new status as Ensign, 1100, USN.

So while I was coal passer briefly on several Lakers, this paper describes my work on board the Pioneer.

Of the approximately four hundred plus U.S. Lakers sailing in the early 1940s, most had fire tube boilers, often termed Scotch boilers. These were not very efficient heat machines. The feed water for making steam was contained inside a big steel cylinder fitted atop a firebrick lined “firebox.” Numerous, fairly large diameter steel tubes were fitted tightly through the ends of this boiler.

Hot gas from burning coal in the firebox passed through the inside of these large tubes. Heat energy was transferred into the surrounding water which duly became steam. By modern standards, the steam was maintained at a low pressure of about 180 pounds per square inch because the metallurgy early in the century didn’t safely permit higher pressures. As the steam boiled off it was piped aft to a big heavy reciprocating steam engine in the engine room which drove the propeller shaft.

By the early 1940s, new ships were appearing with water tube boilers. As the name implies, the feed water passed through inside many much smaller diameter high grade steel tubes lying above the firebox with the hot burning gases passing outside. These boilers could stand much higher pressures and the steam coming from them was at a much higher temperature. In a few more years it became routine to pass the steam through still another set of tubes placed high in the stream of hot gases where the steam was “superheated” with still more heat energy before it went on to rotate a steam turbine in the engine room.

The fire room, or boiler room, of a coal burning ship was not an attractive space. The licensed engineers — in charge of both the boiler room and the engine room watch — seldom stuck their head in the fire room. It was grimy with coal dust, extremely hot and poorly lit. It was a virtual dungeon. (By comparison, on ships of that era with the old “up and down” reciprocating engines, it was customary to keep all the machinery in the engine room painted in bright colors and spotless.)

During the 1940s, the newer ships already had mechanical stokers and did not require hand-firing of the boilers. The stokers were simply machines that crushed the coal and conveyed it into the firebox. I never served in the engine department of a stoker-fired ship. By the 1950s, even older vessels then in service were retrofitted with stokers.

Typically I recall having two fire tube boilers each with two hinged firebox doors approximately 30 inches wide and 20 inches high. Coal was shoveled through these doors into the firebox.

The ship’s coal supply was contained in a single bunker, or small hold, located immediately forward of the fire room. This was supplied at the Lower Lake ports via rail car dumper which poured perhaps six or eight rail hopper cars to fill the bunker heaping full via a hatch in the forward end of the boat deck. While taking on bunkers, several panels were fitted temporarily below in the fire room to close off large open coal bunker doorways located about ten feet from the firebox doors through which coal from the full bunker could flow outward onto the deck plating. As the coal supply diminished during the voyage, the coal passer would have to walk an increasing number of steps to reach the coal. Ultimately the supply ran low, requiring the coal passer to go inside the coal bunker and shovel coal aft onto the deck plates where his senior partner, the fireman, could easily reach it with his shovel. Normally, the coal passer simply did what was necessary to assure a handy pile on the floor plates where the fireman could scoop it up.

A good fireman wasn’t just a shovel wielder. He became very adept at scooping up just the quantity he wanted, then gracefully arcing it through the firebox door to land precisely where he wanted it in the firebox. With a mere glance, he knew exactly where the bed of burning coal was hot enough and where it needed some sustenance. His shovel barely “dinged” the bottom of the fire door and he knew how to make the instinctive small changes in shovel angle to send coal a bit right or left or to shape a longer or shorter trajectory.

The fireman worked with three basic tools: the large pan shovel, a steel slice bar, and a hoe. The slice bar was about eight feet long comprising a paddle-like flattened end portion about four inches wide and two feet in length before tapering into a round steel shaft about 7/8-inch diameter, ending with a closed loop constituting a protected handgrip.

A healthy fire required that the white-hot bed of burning coal have porosity to allow ample air from large blowers to flow up through to maintain combustion. When the flame bed started to show darker, cooler spots, the fireman would insert the slice bar and ram it back through the flame bed to increase airflow. When working the aft areas of the firebox, the fireman was very close to the open fire door and the heat became daunting. Radiant heat diminishes quickly as distance increases, so the fireman instinctively made a quick retreat. Steam pressure gauges mounted overhead were kept under very close scrutiny. An experienced fireman, however, knew when to start shoveling a few more shovelful into each door every few minutes; virtually continually. Shovel too fast and you’d cool the fire and drop the steam production. Goof off a couple minutes and the same cooling and steam pressure drop would occur. If pressure varied much, the engineer on watch in the engine room would be on the voice tube from the engine control station (who also was watching his own pressure gauge) and would suggest the fireman “get his act together.”

At least once per four-hour watch, the coal passer and fireman had to “clean fires.” Normally this was done just before going off watch because one was obliged to turn over clean, healthy fires to his relieving watch. More frequent cleaning might be required when the ship was supplied a poor-quality coal. This could and did occur because the trade custom was that the coal shipper was entitled to sell the ship its fuel. “Bad” coal caused much grief on board. The chief engineer would be mad as a hornet and sometimes embarrassed before the captain and the head office if it was so bad that full power couldn’t be maintained. But the fireman and coal passer were the ones who really suffered. They might have to clean fires far more frequently and work hard shoveling a large volume of hard-to-burn material to keep up steam pressure.

In the process of “cleaning fires,” the fireman first rammed the slice bar into the centerline of the firebox holding the flattened section vertical. This marked a line along the firebox grate bars dividing the fire roughly into equal parts. During the next few minutes he had to maintain steam flow using only the initially undisturbed half of the firebox while starting to dispose of the other half comprising a lot of poorly burning material with a lot of ash and clinker. He first used the slice bar to “wing over” (flip or toss) the upper part of the burning mass onto the portion temporarily being retained. He then used a large heavy long-handled hoe, not unlike a giant garden hoe, and pulled the hot ash-laden side of the fire out the firebox door flowing into a red-hot pile a few feet in front of his shoes sending the intuitive fireman into a hasty retreat. Since radiant heat is an inverse function of the square of the distance, a few feet sufficed to avoid injury if he moved quickly. The coal passer directed a water hose at the pile, and for a few moments, hot water vapor filled the area like a London fog. The fireman might then pause to catch his breath while standing a bit aside under the direct stream of cool fresh air blowing from an 18-inch ventilation pipe from the boat deck. Meanwhile, the coal passer started shoveling the hot, steamy ashes about eight feet to create a new pile near one of the ash guns from whence it would soon be disposed. (To be described shortly)

The fireman quickly resumed work by “winging” the upper portion of the remaining fire onto the now vacant grate bars. He topped that with a few shovelfuls of fresh coal and paused a couple minutes for the new fire to gain heat. He could then hoe the remaining old fire out of the furnace.

Fireman and coal passer then repeated this routine in the adjacent fire door after which one boiler had a “clean,” healthy fire. When the ship occasionally received a bunker full of poor quality coal, it might even be necessary to clean fires twice in a watch. While such a watch was truly misery and left our two-man team exhausted, it assured that the ship had a good porous bed of combustion for the next several hours until the relieving watch repeated it all.

Our junior coal passer, lacking experience, kept shoveling ashes from all the fireboxes onto one very large pile of hot ash and clinkers. He then shoveled the ash pile into the ash gun. An ash gun was a heavy steel hopper structure of perhaps four cubic feet in volume with a four-inch diameter pipe curving up from its bottom and leading to an overboard discharge about 18 to 22 feet above the hopper. A jet of live steam was introduced pointing across the bottom of the hopper and into the 4-inch discharge pipe. The high velocity steam nozzle created a Bernoulli effect that ejected the ash up the pipe and overboard as a wet slurry.

The ash gun could be dangerous. If one shoveled a clinker of certain size and shapes, it could get jammed in the bottom of the ash gun and deflect live steam up and out of the hopper. A quick closing valve could turn off the steam supply, but on occasions, not before the operator got burned by live steam. I managed to get a nasty burn but luckily had already turned my face to shovel when a jet hit me between my shoulder blades and left a sizeable patch of burned skin, which eventually healed without scar.

Although actually some teams opted to share chores, most senior fireman didn’t do this low level work, so our coal passer had the fun of shoveling the whole big pile of ash himself. By the end of the watch, this team was red-eyed and every bit as black and grimy as the miners one sees in the old coalfield photos of the era. After a long shower with a bar of soap and a few hours sleep, they would start it all over again.

I don’t recall having served in the engine department in a ship with stokers, so I didn’t learn the details of such wondrous new things; although in retrospect it seems likely the John Hulst, built in 1938, would have had a modern engineering plant.

The ships I describe were kept in service into the 1940s only because WWII demanded every possible ton of ore be moved to the steel mills. Few of these old hand-fired vessels sailed into the 1950s. Only a short ten years would pass before coal fuel was on its way out and fuel oil was firing Lakers fitted with water tube boilers, air preheaters and economizers generating 450 pounds-per-square-inch steam, superheated to 750 degrees and driving steam turbines.

There just weren’t many coal passers and hand shovel firemen needed after WWII. While the fireman title remained, the work became entirely different.

About The Author:

William E. (Bill) Bardelmeier’s long career has been in shipping. As a youth in Cleveland, he seized every opportunity during school breaks to sail the Great Lakes. After two stints in the U.S. Navy, he gained a coveted job as the junior ship dispatcher in the Columbia Transportation fleet of Oglebay Norton & Co. His recall into the Navy during the Korean war was followed by a chance to join the start-up of U.S. Steel Corp’s Navios subsidiary which, quickly and without fanfare, became one of the world’s largest bulk fleets. From its Nassau-based headquarters, Navios was soon moving approximately 30 million tons per year of ore from Venezuela, Brazil, Canada, S. Africa and India to the USA, U.K., Germany and Italy. He left Navios in 1960 to become V.P. Marine with the Marcona group, which built up a fleet of large ore/oil carriers. That fleet hauled iron ore from Marcona’s mines in Peru to Germany and Japan and pioneered a backhaul of crude oil from Indonesia to California in the world’s biggest contemporary combination ore/oil vessels.

Rejoining an old friend and former boss, Roger M. Jones (another youthful Lakes sailor and later General Manager of Navios) at the end of 1962, the two founded the shipping consulting firm, Jones Bardelmeier & Co., Ltd. in Nassau, Bahamas.

Bardelmeier spent the next 38 years as a consultant to many large international mining and raw materials companies shipping large volumes in bulk all over the world. The firm became well known in its niche role. While iron ore remained a “staple,” the firm developed expertise in self-unloader applications, in the early large movements of cryogenic gases, and in the operation of large international cement carriers.

In retirement, Mr. Bardelmeier has served as a member of the board of directors of the Bahamas Maritime Authority which administers the flag registry of the world’s third largest fleet.

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The Great Lakes… 84% of the continent’s fresh water… a different story in every drop.

By Jon Brosseit

“What a horrible, horrible thing. We are doing everything that can be done,” Dornbos said. Talking to a reporter on the telephone he said his company was doing all possible to cooperate in the investigation. He then suddenly dropped the phone. His wife picked it up. “He’s terribly broken up over this,” Mrs. Dornbos said.
Muskegon Chronicle
Tuesday, October 8, 1963

The ‘horrible thing’ was the deaths of seven people and illness, some serious, of 18 others caused by Type E botulism poisoning after eating smoked fish processed by the H. J. Dornbos & Bros. Company of Grand Haven, Michigan. This tragic event forever changed the face of commercial fishing throughout the nation.

Prior to October 1963, the H.J. Dornbos & Bros. Company had been smoking whitefish chubs for 74 years without incident. Harold J. Dornbos, the owner speaking on the phone in the quotation above, became sole owner of the firm in 1951. He purchased the business from his father and uncle, who founded the company in 1889. By 1951, 90% of Dornbos’ trade was in smoked fish, making them one of the largest suppliers of smoked fish in the nation.

At the time of the botulism poisoning in 1963, Dornbos was still one of the largest suppliers of smoked fish in the nation with 38 employees processing four to five tons of smoked whitefish chubs per week. Tax records indicate gross sales averaged close to half a million dollars annually in the years just prior to 1963. Dornbos distributed smoked fish to between 600 and 900 stores, including the major chains of A&P, National Food, and Kroger (a Kroger store in Knoxville, Tennessee, was identified as having sold the tainted fish that caused the deaths and illness).

The facts were simple. The following is from newspaper reports and an interview with attorney Harvey Scholten who represented the Rooks Transfer Co. in the resulting lawsuits.

The pre-packaged fish ordered by the Kroger stores of Tennessee were loaded on a Rooks Transfer truck in Grand Haven on Thursday, September 19, 1963. Rooks delivered the order to Chicago for transfer to another carrier for delivery to Tennessee. Packed in dry ice, it was estimated the fish could remain at a refrigerated temperature for about three days, although the boxes did not indicate the fish required constant refrigeration.

Rooks delivered the fish to the trucking terminal in Chicago that same Thursday. The fish were loaded last on the next available Atkins Cargo Express truck so that they would be the first to be unloaded. The Atkins truck arrived Friday in Nashville where the fish were to be unloaded and delivered to 18 Knoxville area Kroger supermarkets by a local carrier, Tennessee Cartage. However, the Atkins truck was not unloaded that Friday or over the weekend. In fact, the fish did not appear on Kroger shelves until the following Wednesday or Thursday, September 26 and 27. The disruption of the planned delivery schedule was never explained. The lack of refrigeration and/or the lack of sufficient cooking temperature and an environment absent of oxygen, allowed a powerful toxin to grow into the rare Type E botulina bacteria. It was reported at the time by University of Michigan scientists that Cobra venom and arsenic are considered mild when compared with this bacteria.

In 1963, such hazards were relatively unknown. The early Sixties were part of the growing heyday of consumerism. Following the introduction of the first “supermarket,” credited to Michael Cullen in Queens, New York City, in 1930, consumerism began to reflect the growth of the middle-class — owning more cars and refrigerators. The burgeoning supermarket concept encouraged food processors to package their products for convenience. This decade saw the first packages of chicken parts available in stores rather than whole chickens … an innovation of Don Tyson and Frank Purdue.

The modern advance of vacuum-packed smoked fish may have been a contributing factor in this case. In May 1960, an article in the local Grand Haven Tribune touted the new plastic wrap being used by the H.J. Dornbos & Bros. “has put new life into the old smoked fish business.” In that article, Harold Dornbos noted, “the new plastic wrap adds 10 cents a pound to the cost but is what the housewives want and they are the big buyers to satisfy in the market place.” Previously, consumers purchased smoked fish from their local fish market. Attorney Harvey Scholten remembers buying smoked chubs for his mother from Dornbos “right off the counter.” This new packaging was a sign of the times.

Danger

There were clues as to the danger of selling smoked fish in this new packaging.

One clue was a letter introduced as evidence in the court files of the lawsuits that followed the incident. The letter, from the State of Minnesota Department of Agriculture Dairy and Food, dated October 5, 1960, and addressed to H.J. Dornbos, reported an outbreak of food poisoning in Minneapolis which resulted in two deaths specifically attributed to “Clostridium Botulinum toxin carried by smoked ciscoes … packaged in vacuum-pack pliofilm.” The letter goes on to state the belief that the smoking procedure process would not restrict the growth of the botulism toxin. It therefore recommended against packaging in a vacuum container. The letter indicated the department was not ready to issue regulations but was simply recommending against the use of vacuum packing for smoked fish.

A newspaper article at the time, examining the problem of vacuum-packed, smoked fish and botulism, noted that the toxin was “highly resistant to heat and [known to] grow only in the absence of oxygen.” The suggestion being that when smoking fish, it was not the intention to cook the fish; smoking was for flavoring, and the vacuum-pack inherently would create an oxygen-starved environment. Put into the context of the times, however, this was still an unknown area. One cautionary letter and some newspaper speculation, compared to tons of smoked fish consumed for 74 years without incident, would understandably not raise a dramatic red flag.

Another sign of the times was suggested by attorney Scholten in his opening arguments to the jury in the civil lawsuit. Scholten put the blame on the American public who, “contaminated the lake, the lake contaminated the fish.” He suggested that pollution, not present earlier, introduced the toxin first into the lakes and then into the fish.

When the case finally came to trial in 1971, pollution was much on the public’s mind following the first Earth Day in 1970.

Dramatic Effects on Commercial Fishing Industry

The effects of the tragedy went beyond the smoked fish industry. The power of such a deadly poison as Type E botulism induced fear in consumers of all fish. Reports warned this toxin needed only the presence of one one-hundred billionth part of a gram to kill. This was scary stuff for the consumer to imagine … a deadly poison present in the food they might purchase in the supermarket. In their memory, nothing like this had ever happened in the generation of the fish market.

The Great Lakes fishing industry was already reeling against the effects of the sea lamprey on Lake trout fishing. When the botulism tragedy struck, fishermen across the Great Lakes began halting operations … some 20,000 workers were laid off. One newspaper reported on October 31, 1963: “Tom Brown, owner of Brown Fisheries at Whitefish Point in Upper Michigan, planned to dismiss the 20 fishermen he employs and pull in his nets for the last time today. He said there no longer is a market for the fish. His family’s firm has been taking fish from the Great Lakes since the days before the Civil War.”

Michigan Governor George Romney began to take action to insure public health and to insure a healthy fishing industry. Government agencies worked quickly to issue new regulations on smoked fish and to provide funds to aid the recovery of the fishing industry. On May 20, 1964, it was announced Congress had passed a Bill to authorize $2.75 million in federal grants to be distributed over a five-year period to states suffering the resource disaster. Commercial fishermen and processors suffering substantial economic injury because of the botulism episode could apply for disaster loans from the Small Business Administration.

The H.J. Dornbos & Bros. Company

It appeared H.J. Dornbos & Bros. Company might recover by selling frozen perch fillets. In 1964, after installing $60,000 worth of new equipment, including gas-fired ovens to meet new smoking guidelines, they even resumed sales of smoked fish in new “breathable” cellophane bags. Gone were the hours of smoking over burning hard wood chunks and hickory sawdust which Harold Dornbos’s father had used when he began the company in 1889. But even this was not enough. Harold Dornbos sold his company property at 614 Monroe Street in Grand Haven to a plumbing firm in February 1967. He died two years later on June 26.

Legalities

In June of 1965, H.J. Dornbos & Bros. sued Kroger and the trucking companies involved for $500,000 to recover damages to the business in general and Harold Dornbos in particular: “Harold Dornbos has suffered new and recurrent ulcers and a serious deterioration of his general health.”

Counter suits followed. Kroger’s insurance company had paid the claims of those who died or suffered from the poisoning. The largest settlement of $180,000 was to the Cohen family. Marilyn Cohen suffered the loss of her husband and her 10-year-old daughter Amy Beth after they both ate the tainted fish and died.

Although the Dornbos estate pursued the suit after H.J.’s death, it took eight years of motions, appeals, and depositions, before a jury was selected in March 1971. Harvey Scholten delivered his opening “pollution theory.” Then all parties agreed to an out-of-court settlement in which “no party won or lost,” according to Scholten.

The legacy of this case suggests it to be an example of the cumulative steps in our progression of modern times. It shows us that the journey is not always smooth and reminds us of the hazardous unknowns progress sometimes creates.

Sources

Newspapers: Muskegon Chronicle and Grand Haven Tribune, reports of H.J. Dornbos Co. Harold Dornbos becomes sole owner of firm; new plastic wrap packaging, reports of botulism incident, immediate post-incident reports, and lawsuit reports.

Dornbos Lawsuit Case file #615 at Ottawa County Court, Grand Haven, Michigan: Copy of letter from State of Minnesota Department of Agriculture, copies of income tax returns, insurance settlement reports. Affidavits and depositions of Atkins Cargo Shippers. Copies of State of Michigan Disaster loans program, copy of Dornbos’ “Facts about our new Vacuum-Gas-Packed Smoked Fish.”

“The Chicken Story,” by John Steele Gordon. American Heritage, September 1996, Vol. 47, No. 5 p. 52.

“The Rise of the Supermarket,” by J. Tevere MacFadyen. American Heritage, October/November 1995, Vol. 36, No. 6, p. 22.

Harvey Scholten interview with author, June 18, 1997.

About the Author

Jon Brosseit is a high school teacher in Spring Lake, Michigan, presently working in Education Research for learning strategies delivered by CD software programs. Brosseit first discovered this story working with students on a video project about commercial fishing in Grand Haven.

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The Great Lakes… 84% of the continent’s fresh water… a different story in every drop.

By Brendon Baillod

Somewhere in the depths of Lake Michigan between the ports of Sheboygan and Manitowoc lie the remains of a little schooner called the Gallinipper. She would be a minor footnote in Lake Michigan history were it not for the discovery of her suspected remains in May of 1994 by a commercial fisherman. The net-draped wreck in more than 200 feet of water with her masts still standing may or may not be the Gallinipper, but the possibility of her discovery has provoked a number of inquiries that reveal this vessel’s most interesting and colorful history as well as her historical importance.

The Gallinipper, should she be located, would be a unique relic of Wisconsin’s formative years, with ties to the War of 1812, the Great Lakes fur trading era and the early history of Wisconsin. Her remains would be the oldest ever located for a commercial vessel in Wisconsin waters. The Gallinipper’s story actually begins in Pennsylvania in 1774, with the birth of Michael Dousman. Descended from a Dutch noble family, young Dousman quickly became bored with the pastoral farming communities of Pennsylvania and by the age of 20 he had struck out with his eldest brother John Dousman for the northwestern frontier, leaving his father John, Sr., and his mother Catherine in Pittsburgh. Sometime around 1805, the Dousmans settled on Mackinac Island where they took up a career in fur trading. They learned to speak French and quickly established relationships with the local “voyageurs” and Indians and began to prosper almost immediately. John married Rose LaBorde, the daughter of a prominent French trader. Michael, despite being an American, was highly respected by Indian, French and British alike. Michael formed a friendship with the Milwaukee fur trader and founder, Solomon Juneau, and soon owned a large portion of what would later become the City of Milwaukee.

Dousman gained notoriety during the War of 1812 by saving the lives of Americans at Fort Michilimackinac from an impending British attack. Because of Dousman’s good relations with the Indians, French and British, he was secretly engaged to negotiate with the British and Indian flotilla sent to take the fort. Dousman was taken prisoner by the British but was concerned that there would be needless slaughter of civilians as there had been in other recent attacks. Under duress, Dousman agreed to give the British information about the location of soldiers and reinforcements at the fort. In exchange, the British agreed to postpone their attack long enough to allow Dousman to return to the fort and move all the civilians to safety.

Thanks in part to Dousman, the fort was taken without a single life lost, but many accused Dousman of being a traitor, or at least more concerned with his fur trading profits than his country.

Despite questions about Dousman’s wartime activities, he became one of the most prosperous and influential men on the western Great Lakes. By the end of the war, he had established trading stations all over Lake Michigan. He eventually owned significant tracts of land down the Wisconsin coast and throughout the Straits of Mackinac. Dousman continued to prosper and he began to build a fleet of vessels for his fur trading empire. In 1818, he bought his first vessel, the schooner Tiger of Detroit, to transport his furs to eastern Great Lakes ports. Other vessel acquisitions followed, including the schooners Minx, Mariner, Wave and the brig Austerlitz. Dousman even owned a significant share in the ship Milwaukie.

In 1832, Dousman commissioned the building of his first new vessel, which he christened Nancy Dousman, after his daughter. Built at Black River, Ohio, over the winter of 1832/33, she was launched with two masts and a scroll stem. Her dimensions were 69.0 x 20.6 x 7.0 ft. with a carrying capacity of 85 and 56/95ths gross tons by the builders old measurement system. She was the first vessel to be built by Master Carpenter William Jones. William Jones was the son of Augustus Jones, an early and noted shipbuilder on Lake Erie, whose five sons all became shipbuilders. The Jones family became a Great Lakes shipbuilding dynasty — brothers George W., Frederick N. and Benjamin B. Jones all went on to become prolific shipbuilders, constructing over 100 vessels between them.

The Nancy Dousman was launched in the spring of 1833, and on July 1 she was enrolled at the frontier customs house of Michilimackinac under the command of Captain James Sanderson. She experienced her first difficulty in April 1834, while delivering a cargo to Fort Mackinac. Explorer and Indian agent Henry Schoolcraft recorded the event in his memoirs as follows:

April 21st 1834. The schooner “Nancy Dousman” arrived in the morning from below. A change of weather supervened. Wind N.E., with snow. The ground is covered with it to the depth of one or two inches. Water frozen, giving a sad check to vegetation.

April 22nd 1834. This morning develops a north-east storm, during which the “Nancy Dousman” is wrecked, but all the cargo saved: a proof that the harbor is no refuge from a north-easter. The wind abates in the evening. — Henry Schoolcraft — 30 Years with the Indians.

The Nancy Dousman was repaired and put back in service the same season and in September 1834, she arrived at Buffalo, New York, with a cargo of furs valued at $265,000. She continued in the fur trade, and by May of 1835, was running under Captain James Shooks, making trips every ten days between Buffalo, Detroit, Mackinac, Chicago, Michigan City and St. Joseph. The Nancy Dousman often carried merchandise to the fledgling communities of the Lake Michigan wilderness as evidenced by the early Mackinac customs house manifests:

July 11, 1835, the schr. Nancy Dousman, 85 59/95, Capt. James Shook, sailed from Buffalo for Green Bay with a cargo of food stuffs, pipe and shoes.

April 28, 1836, schr. Nancy Dousman, Capt. Richard Sutliff, sailed from Detroit to Milwaukee with bulk consignments for G. D. Dousman, M. Dousman and others.

October 28, 1836, schr. Nancy Dousman, 85 59/95 tons, sailed from Detroit to Milwaukee with a cargo of sundries, articles, stoves, cows, copper boiler, iron pots, cittles [sic] (the specific articles consigned to M. Dousman at Mackinac).

In summer 1835, Michael Dousman sold a minority interest in the Nancy Dousman to Detroit merchant William Brewster and to Buffalo merchants Pratt & Taylor. The group ran the vessel primarily between Buffalo, Detroit, Mackinac and Lake Michigan ports under the command of Captain Nash. In 1838, she sustained significant damage in a stranding at Mission Point on Mackinac Island, and on October 16, 1840, Dousman sold his controlling interest in the vessel to William Dickson of Black Rock, New York, who placed her under the command of Captain John Browning.

By 1840, Lake Michigan was no longer a wilderness and Dousman could see the end of the fur trading era fast approaching. The growing town of Milwaukee presented many new opportunities, prompting Dousman to relocate his operations there. Dousman would eventually have four vessels named after his family, including the schooners Nancy Dousman (qv), Michael Dousman (built Milwaukee, 1843), Rose Dousman (built Milwaukee, 1856) and George D. Dousman (built Cleveland, 1857). Michael Dousman’s son George would become a prominent grain merchant and land owner at Milwaukee, his son Talbot would found the town of Dousman, Wisconsin, and his son Hercules would be one of the founding fathers of Prairie Du Chien, Wisconsin, and Wisconsin’s first millionaire. Michael would serve as a Delegate to the Michigan State Constitutional Convention in 1835, and his sons would do likewise for the State of Wisconsin. Daughter Jane Dousman would marry prominent Milwaukee physician and businessman Erastus B. Wolcott and daughters Nancy and Elizabeth would marry French fur traders. By the time of Michael Dousman’s death in 1854, Lake Michigan had been transformed from a mysterious, unexplored wilderness into a freshwater freeway and the Dousman family had played a major role in shaping it. The importance of the Dousman family in the history of Wisconsin and Lake Michigan is consequently hard to over-estimate.

On August 11, 1843, the Nancy Dousman once again came under ownership of the Dousman family when she was purchased by Captain G.C. Vail of Milwaukee for Mr. George D. Dousman. Dousman tried to run the vessel in the grain trade, but the little ship proved too old and small to compete with the larger vessels being built on Lake Erie, and in March 1844, she was damaged in a stranding on Lake Michigan.

By 1846, the little schooner was beginning to show her age and had developed significant hull rot. Her fate appeared to be sealed when she was driven ashore at Milwaukee that March, sustaining significant damage. At that time, only a small handful of ships had been built at Milwaukee and relatively few vessels were available on Lake Michigan. Nearly all commercial grade vessels of the day were built at eastern Lakes ports. Consequently, the Nancy Dousman’s weathered hull was not easily discarded. Within a short time, her hull was purchased by Captain John B. Smith for Jefferson Sinclair of Milwaukee, who hired Milwaukee shipwright Henry Gibson to rebuild and lengthen the vessel:

Schooner “Nancy Dousman.” — This vessel we understand, has been hauled upon the ways near Sweet’s warehouse, cut in two, and is to be lengthened 25 feet, and have her decks raised. This will increase her tonnage (now 80) to some 130. She is intended for the lumber trade, though when fixed up new she will be able to stow away a good cargo of wheat. —Milwaukee Sentinel — reported in Daily National Pilot, Buffalo, Fri. Morning, March 20, 1846

Isaac Stephenson, later a prominent Wisconsin politician and businessman, recorded the event in his memoirs:

In 1846 Mr. [Jefferson] Sinclair purchased from George Dousman, the “forwarder and warehouse man” of Milwaukee, the schooner “Nancy Dousman” for use in connection with the mill at Escanaba. The vessel, which I hauled out on the ways, was cut in two and lengthened twenty-five feet, rechristened the

“Gallinipper” and placed under command of Captain George W. Ford. — Isaac Stephenson, Public Life in Wisconsin

On May 9, 1846, the new, larger schooner slid into the Milwaukee River and began service in the lumber trade:

A LAUNCH. — The new schooner which Mr. J.B. Smith has been building here during the last three months out of the skeleton of the Nancy Dousman, was launched on Saturday afternoon. She is a very handsome vessel, 142 tons burthen, and looks as if she might sail and carry well. Her new name is Gallinipper. — Milwaukee Sentinel, May 11. Daily National Pilot, Buffalo, Tues. Morning, May 19, 1846

She was christened Gallinipper after a fast flying, mosquito-like biting insect. She was likewise a two sticker with a scroll head, but was considerably larger at 95.0 x 21.8 x 7.9 ft. with a carrying capacity of 144 and 89/95ths gross tons by the builders old measurement system. The Gallinipper was brought out by Captain George W. Ford and ran primarily out of Milwaukee in the Lake Michigan lumber trade. On August 27, 1847, Captain Smith sold the Gallinipper to Milwaukee investors Joseph Smight, Hiram Barber, and Urick H. Persons, while he continued as her master. She ran without incident until the unlucky date of July 7, 1848, when she was blown down off Beacon Island near the Beavers by a freak July gale. She was upbound, light when the blow laid her on her beam ends, disabling her. Captain Smith was able to flag down the propeller Oneida, which took her in tow and pulled her into the shallows at Beaver Island. She required extensive repairs and re-rigging, with an overall bill of $3,300, which was nearly half the vessel’s value.

On October 26, 1848, the Gallinipper was sold to Milwaukee vesselmen Captain James Stewart and Daniel Newhall who ran her primarily out of Chicago under the command of Captain Stewart. She had a successful season in 1849, with no noted mishaps. In early 1850, she was sold to N. Ludington & Co., agents for Jefferson Sinclair and placed under the command of Captain Badenoque. However, the fall gales of 1850 laid her aground at Milwaukee with a $300 salvage bill. Isaac Stephenson, who served as mate on the vessel, relates the account of the storm as follows:

The first few trips were uneventful but in the early part of September 1850, while on our way to Escanaba, with the boat light, we ran into a storm. There were eight passengers aboard, a yawl in tow and a horse on deck all bound for Bailey’s Harbor. The yawl could not be taken aboard because the schooner was very “crank” when unladen and had capsized two years before at Presque Isle on Lake Huron [sic]. A terrific gale came up and, while fighting the storm from Friday morning to Sunday afternoon, we drifted from what is now called Algoma, then known as Wolf River, twelve miles south of Sturgeon Bay, to a point ten miles south of Racine. The yawl parted its painter and went adrift to the east side of the lake; the horse died at midnight on Sunday when we were off Milwaukee harbor, and the passengers, who had despaired of ever seeing land again, were back where they had started. The storm which we had happily survived was said to be one of the most severe that ever swept Lake Michigan. — Isaac Stephenson, Public Life in Wisconsin

Worse troubles for the Gallinipper came in 1851 when she sank at the mouth of Milwaukee Harbor on May 10 with another $300 repair bill. She was pumped out and promptly put back in service.

The Gallinipper would meet her end under very familiar circumstances. On Saturday, July 5, 1851, she cleared Milwaukee harbor in ballast under the command of Captain Badenoque in the company of the schooner Cleopatra. By July 7, three years to the day from the Gallinipper’s previous brush with death, the two vessels were making good time off Sheboygan when, without warning, another freak July storm bore down from the west and laid the Gallinipper on her side. The storm, described as a “white squall,” seemingly appeared out of the blue and was gone just as quickly. Fortunately, the Cleopatra was within sight and quickly came to the Gallinipper’s aid. Captain Badenoque and his crew were taken aboard the Cleopatra and brought to Sheboygan where plans were initiated to recover the vessel. Isaac Stephenson, who had purchased an interest in the vessel related the episode as follows:

After I had made a few trips on the Gallinipper as mate the company commissioned me to buy horses, oxen and supplies, another ruse of Mrs. Sinclair’s to divert my attention from sailing. Mrs. Sinclair, whose maternal interest in me had not diminished, also pleaded with me to give it up as a career. None the less I was still absorbed in it and during the following year, 1851, I purchased a half interest in the Gallinipper on July 5, when she was on her way to Escanaba. This was not a fortunate venture. On July 7, when off Sheboygan the vessel capsized and sank, a total loss although all of the crew were saved. The transaction not having been recorded with the underwriters I saved my outlay for the purchase.

The schooner Crook examined the vessel shortly after her capsize and found that she had righted herself but had sunk by the bow with only ten feet of her stern still above water.

The Gallinipper remained afloat for a few more days. On Wednesday, July 9, Captain Joseph Edwards of the schooner Convoy came upon the Gallinipper and tried to tow her in. His account was related by the Manitowoc Herald:

The schooner Convoy, Captain Joseph Edwards, from Racine, reports that on the afternoon of Wednesday, about ten miles south east by south from this place, she fell in with the capsized schooner Gallinipper. The Captain made use of every effort to right her, and to tow her off, but could not effect it. He succeeded in taking the mainsail, the main boom and the main gaff, which he has stored with P.P. Smith, merchant of this place. He made fast to her and was able to swing her round but not to tow her from her position. From appearances, some portion of the capsized rigging had become fastened beneath the vessel. She is in 40 fathoms of water, with her taffrail and main mast head exposed.

A few days later, Captain Badenoque went in search of the Gallinipper aboard the Cleopatra. He scoured the area of her last position, hoping to free her from her bonds, but she had gone to the bottom. She was fully insured and N. Ludington & Co. recovered their $5000 investment in the vessel, but the Gallinipper had gone beyond the reach of salvage.

For over 140 years, the Gallinipper received little attention, until May 1994, when commercial fisherman Mike LeClair fouled his nets on an unknown obstruction in deep water between Manitowoc and Sheboygan. LeClair attempted to free his nets and inadvertently brought up the mast of a 19th Century sailing vessel. Intrigued, he donated the mast to the Rogers Street Fishing Village Museum at Two Rivers and called local divers to free his nets. Divers Bob Duchrow, Steve Radovan, Kent Bellrichard, Jim Brotz, John Steele and George West made trips to the wrecksite. Duchrow and Steele made the deep, treacherous dive to the wreck. The wreck appeared to be a wooden schooner of early design, showing very little wear. It appeared as though she had gone down early in her life. Unfortunately, low visibility, equipment problems and entangling fishnets described as “an underwater tennis court” prompted divers to abort their dive early.

Is this deep wreck the historic Gallinipper? The historical record provides a number of clues, none conclusive. If the reported historical depth of 40 fathoms is to be believed, one wonders how the rigging or masts could have become stuck on the bottom, as the Gallinipper’s masts were only about 100 ft. high. Perhaps her anchor lodged beneath her and prevented her from being towed. There are certainly a number of other eligible candidates for the identity of the wreck, including the brig Abiah, lost in the same area on September 4, 1855, and the bark Success, lost nearby in September 1863. However, sport divers have recently begun visiting this wreck and in May 2002, her wheel was reportedly removed by trophy collecting technical divers. It is indeed sad to see this potentially historic vessel being robbed of clues that could establish her identity and possibly provide Wisconsin with a tangible physical link to its fur trading era.

References

Midwest Pioneers: Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin

Collections and Researches by the Michigan Pioneer & Historical Society

Henry Schoolcraft — 30 Years with the Indians

Isaac Stephenson — Public Life in Wisconsin

Richard Wright — Adz, Caulk & Rivets: A History of Shipbuilding…Ohio’s North Shore

John Brandt Mansfield — History of the Great Lakes, Illustrated

Vessel Enrollment Certificates — Ports of Detroit, Chicago, Michilimackinac & Buffalo

Port of Mackinac Customs House Manifests — Burton Historical Collection

Vessel Licenses & Enrollments for Michilimackinac — Marquette Historical Society

Milwaukee Sentinel — March 20, 1846, May 19, 1846, July 8, 16, 24, 1851

Manitowoc Herald — July 21, 1851

Buffalo Whig — May 20, 1835

Buffalo Commercial Advertiser — Vessels Wrecked on the Northwestern Lakes 1819–1847

Erik Heyl Great Lakes Accident Lists, 1847–1864 — National Archives of Canada

Underwriters Accident Lists, 1848–1851 — Buffalo Commercial Advertiser

Great Lakes Shipwreck Research Group — Internet Newsgroup

Ancestry.com — Online genealogical and historical database

Certain parts of the collection contain historical language and content that some may consider offensive, for example, language used to refer to racial, ethnic and cultural groups. Items in the collection, their content and their descriptions reflect the time period when they were created and the view of their creators. 

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The Great Lakes… 84% of the continent’s fresh water… a different story in every drop.

By Roger M. Jones

Whistle signals on the Great Lakes have always been fascinating. Some were unusual — only used by U.S.-flag lakers. Ships all over the world use whistle signals to communicate with each other and — in some cases — tugs, locks, bridges and the shore. There are, of course, the official “rules of the road” which apply to the lakes as well as the ocean. These include the passing signals: one long blast, “I’m directing my course to the right or starboard;” and two long blasts, “I’m directing my course to left or port.” An important signal is the danger signal, which consists of short, rapid blasts, not less than five, which puts the involved vessel or vessels on notice of impending danger.

Many persons around the Lakes are familiar with the three blasts at minute intervals used in fog, mist, falling snow and heavy rainstorms, blown by a vessel that is continuing to move in the inclement weather. If the boat goes to anchor, five short blasts are blown at intervals.

I remember situations when, in dense fog on Lake Superior, approaching Sault Ste. Marie (the Soo) downbound between Crisp Point and the Soo, seven to ten lakers would be forced to anchor. Six or seven would already be at anchor, each tooting five blasts at intervals when some bold captain would try to keep going and “crawl along” to get to the head of the line when the fog lifted. He would proceed very slowly, weaving through the anchored five blasters, continuously blowing his three blasts until he, too, finally anchored. When the fog lifted, you would see the entire anchored fleet, the ones closest to the Soo, hoisting anchor and starting to move.

One of the most interesting aspects of whistle signals on the Lakes was that, for many years, each fleet had its own whistle signal. In addition, each ship in the fleet had its own. George Ryan, former President of the Lake Carriers’ Association, told me in 2001, “I have no idea when it started (assignment of fleet and ship whistle signals), but it was well established in 1902 when the LCA Bulletins were published.” The Lake Carriers’ Association was the entity that assigned the fleet and individual boat signals. By the 1970s, fleet and ship whistle signals were seldom used and Ryan told me that by the time he took over as President of LCA in 1981, the practice had been abandoned.

There was a time on the Lakes, of course, when the whistle signals were “it” — the only means of communicating with another ship. Radio telephones came into use on the lakes in the 1930s and radar became standard equipment on lakers in the 1940s, right after the end of World War II. Ship identification whistle signals then became less and less useful and gradually their use was discontinued in the sixties and seventies. Of course, whistle signals applicable to rules of the road are still used.

The lever in the pilothouse that activated the whistle also activated a light high up on the forward mast, which was synchronized with the whistle. A long blast on the whistle produced a light on the mast of equivalent length and likewise a short blast produced a brief light. Many fleets had their company logo made up of lights on the mast (Cleveland Cliffs had a diamond in lights with a big C in the middle on the forward mast; Reiss ships had a big R in lights). When the whistle was blown, the logo would light up for the equivalent time of each blast.

Actually, if the wind was blowing in the wrong direction, the whistle signal could not always be heard by the other ship and the mast light would be the controlling signal. At night, or when running in bad weather, the on-watch watchman would always be at the very bow and was the one most likely to hear and/or see the whistle and light signal from another ship. The watchman would pass on what he saw or heard to the Captain or mate on watch in the pilothouse, as a double check on what was seen and heard from the pilothouse.

Some of the fleet signals in use for many years were:

    American Steamship Company (Boland & Cornelius): — • — •

    Inland Steel: — • • • —

    Cleveland Tankers: — • • • • —

    Oglebay Norton: — • — — •

An example of fleet and vessel signals would be American Steamship Co.’s Belle River. Whistle signal would be — • — •, followed by a short interval, then the vessel’s whistle signal
— • • •

Pittsburgh Steamship Company (later U.S. Steel fleet) had so many vessels (73 steamers and six barges in 1937) that, in addition to the fleet whistle signal, it was the only fleet that required a “Class” signal. There were three classes in the fleet. Thus, a Pittsburgh ship would blow the fleet signal followed by a short interval, then a Class signal followed by a short interval, and finally the individual ship signal.

When Class signals were still being used for Pittsburgh Steamship Company vessels in 1959 (subsequently as the Pittsburgh SS fleet became smaller, Class signals were discontinued), a typical signal, in this example for the William A. Irvin, was: Fleet Signal — • • —     Class Signal — —  Irvin’s own signal • • •

Purpose and Location

One of the most important locations when a signal was blown was for boats passing through the Straits of Mackinac. Ever since 1898, the Dagwell Agency at Mackinaw City had reported to the vessel owners by telegram their ship’s passage — and to newspapers in Great Lakes cities that carried lake “Marine Passages,” the name, time and whether eastbound or westbound of every ship that went through the Straits — all based on the whistle signals that all lakers blew. The officer on watch on each ship decided at what point in the Straits, based primarily on wind strength and direction, the Dagwell Agency at Mackinaw City was mostly likely to hear the signal. In 1960, the Dagwell reporting station closed. The owners were now communicating with their fleet by radio, and as lake fleets were disappearing or growing smaller, lake newspapers stopped carrying “passages.” The need for a reporting station at the Straits had effectively disappeared.

There were other situations and places where the fleet/ship whistle signals were blown. When ships were approaching certain ports to identify the ship to a shore entity, the signal was blown. Some fleets had their vessels blow their signal when passing the fleet flagship. Often it was blown when about to pass a home on one of the rivers where an active Captain’s family, or a retired Captain, lived. One of the most intriguing uses of the signal, which I remember vividly from my college summer sailing days — was to let crewmembers ashore know that their boat was unloaded and ready to sail. I remember crewmen being “up the street” in Ashtabula (usually in a nearby bar) when the boat was unloaded a little ahead of schedule and ready to sail. If all the crew weren’t on board, the Captain or mate on watch would blow the fleet/ship signal and within minutes, the last crewman would climb the ladder and the lines would be let go.

In the days before there was radio communication between ship and shore, there were standard whistle signals exchanged when a vessel was approaching a loading or unloading port.

What follows is just an example of some of the procedures outlined in “Whistle Signals,” a Lake Carriers’ publication dated May 1, 1920:

APPROACHING TWO HARBORS: If a ship is consigned to Two Harbors to load or to get instructions, proper signal designating fleet to which she belongs, and her name, should be blown when nearing this port.

DESTINATION ORDERS: When approaching Two Harbors, upon receiving: One long blast, a vessel is ordered into that port. One short and one long blast, a vessel is ordered on to Duluth. Two long blasts, she is ordered to Superior. Upon receiving the following signal — one short, one short and one short blast, the vessel will understand that she is ordered to turn back and proceed to Ashland for her cargo.

DOCK NUMBER: The particular dock where cargo is to be supplied will be designated by long blasts from one to six in number. These long blasts will be blown by siren. If cargo is to be taken on north side of the dock, the blast designating the dock number will be followed by one short blast. If cargo is to be taken on the south side of the dock, there will be no whistle following the whistles that designate the number of the dock.

These explanations continued for Duluth, Superior, Escanaba, Ashland, Mackinac, etc.

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The Great Lakes… 84% of the continent’s fresh water… a different story in every drop.

By Walter C. Cowles 

Having had a lifelong interest in ships and maritime history and being a reader of numerous related publications, I’ve often noted that many writers of maritime history, in spite of having researched the particular subject, have very little understanding of the concepts of measurement and tonnage. Hopefully, the following will be of some help.

Dimensions

LENGTH:

Writers are often confused and assume that someone has erred because they find different values in different sources. There are, for example, at least five different values for length.

• Register Length: a measurement of internal length in accordance with whatever admeasurement regulations are governing.
• Length on Keel: probably a significant measurement in the days of wooden ships, and approximately the length of the keel timbers. Of little relevance for steel ships but used by some builders. Great Lakes Engineering Works customarily used keel length as a major measurement.
• Length between Perpendiculars: LBP — FP is the intersection of the fore side of the stem with the design, (or assigned) summer load waterline and AP is the centerline of the rudder stock.
• Waterline Length: obviously the length between the intersection of the waterline with the stem and stern. Not so obvious, it may be based on waterline at design draft, or the final assigned draft which may differ slightly from the original design.
• Length Overall: length of hull from the extreme forward end to the extreme after end.

BEAM:

Many writers appear to have a tendency to use rather exotic terminology in stating beam. The term, of course, originates from wooden ship practice, where length of beam was the length of the longest deck beam. Suffice to say that in the case of modern steel ships, this is irrelevant and the simple term beam, perhaps modified by the adjective “molded” or “extreme” as appropriate. Molded, as explained below, is to the inside of the plating and extreme to the outside. Molded is the norm because it is readily determined while extreme normally adds only the thickness of the shell plating. In the case of side-wheel ships, beam is the width of the hull and the width over the guards is probably most appropriately defined as extreme width.

DEPTH:

Depth can also be confusing. Again register depth is the depth measured internally in accordance with admeasurement rules and has

little significance describing the size or configuration of the ship. In modern terminology, what we’re interested in is the depth from the bottom of the keel to the deck at side and this is the value that will appear in most registers. Again, it may be either molded or extreme, the difference being only the thickness of the keel plate and the deck stringer plate.

MOLDED DIMENSIONS:

Perhaps by way of a bit of background, molded dimensions are those most readily available and most accurately defined. Construction of a vessel begins with the transfer from the hull lines as drawn to a full scale layout on the floor of the shipyard mold loft. From these molded lines, wood patterns are made for use in forming the frames and plating of the vessel. As these lines are the basis for shaping the frames, they will relate to the inside of the plating of the finished vessel. For the most part, shell plating will seldom be much over an inch thick so the difference between molded and extreme will be of little significance relative to the actual size of the vessel.

Tonnage

First, tonnage comes in two kinds: weight and internal volume. There is absolutely no connection.

REGISTER TONNAGE:

Register tonnage is a measure of internal volume and has absolutely no relation to weight of ship, cargo, or anything else. It is truly an archaic concept and exists only because it always has and because no one has apparently come up with an alternative … it’s readily available and “official.” The sole purpose seems to be to come up with a basis for charges. Register tonnage dates back to the days of wooden ships. In fact, it was “tuns” and perhaps life would be less confusing if it still were. It made sense when ships were pretty similar in construction and general layout and there was really no alternative to determining the relative carrying capacity of an existing vessel afloat. Tuns were the barrel like containers used for the storage and shipment of wine, and our current “ton” approximates the volume of these containers.

GROSS REGISTER TONS:

The internal volume measured from the inside of all framing members. One registered ton is 100 cubic feet of volume.

NET REGISTER TONS:

Gross tons less the volume of bunkers, ballast tanks, crew accommodations and anything else not available for carrying cargo.

A little background: When I was at American Ship Building during the 1950s, admeasurement was a function of the U.S. Department of Customs. When it came time to establish the admeasurement values, a Customs representative would come down to the office, sit down with one of our senior draftsmen, and they would discuss the criteria for preparing the admeasurement plan. While the Customs regulations are detailed and complex, there is always room for a degree of interpretation. Once the drawing was complete, it was forwarded to the Customs office and was the basis for calculating gross and net

tonnage. Subsequently, responsibility for admeasurement calculations became the responsibility of the Coast Guard and — I believe — is now delegated to the American Bureau of Shipping.

Note that we have gross and net tonnage, but not gross and net tons — they are all 100 cubic feet.

Until a few years ago, every nation had its own admeasurement rules as did the Suez and Panama Canals. Thus, if a vessel were transferred from U.S. to Canadian registry, there could be a change in tonnage. Any physical change, for example conversion to a self-unloader, would result in a significant change in tonnage.

In short, for very similar ships, admeasurement tonnage values have little relationship to size, and even ships that are structurally identical may have different tonnage values, particularly if they have come under different jurisdictions.

How Much Does a Ton Weigh?

Generally speaking, in the U.S. we have two kinds of tons: the common short ton of 2,000 pounds and in shipping, the long ton of 2,240 pounds. There is then, of course, the metric ton of 2,204 pounds, now official in Canada. Why the long ton? Because our ship design has an English background and 20 hundredweight equals 2,240 pounds.

DISPLACEMENT TONNAGE:

The weight of water displaced by a floating vessel is exactly the weight of the vessel.

LIGHT WEIGHT TONNAGE:

This is the actual weight of the vessel. With few exceptions, this is an approximation. In the case of ships where stability may be a factor, an inclining experiment will be required. In connection with the inclining experiment, a close approximation of the light weight will be made. This is done by reading the drafts, calculating the displacement and adding the weight of any items remaining to be placed on board and deducting weights to be removed, or not included in the light ships such as ballast, fuel, miscellaneous stores, etc. In other words, the structural weight of the ship with liquids at their normal level, not including fuel or water in their tanks. Lacking this, the builder, may perhaps, at the time of trials, determine the displacement and make a more or less detailed correction for weights to go on or come off.

The ship will never again be so light. She’ll always have residual ballast, mud in the ballast tanks, variable quantities of water, fuel, lubricants, stores, spares, etc.

DEADWEIGHT:

The difference between whatever has been determined as light ship and displacement at any given draft. None of these values are official. They are provided to the regulatory bodies and registers to whatever degree of accuracy and completeness suits the owner.

Displacement and related values may also change without any physical change in the ship, if, as has happened in the last few years, regulations change to permit reassignment of load lines.

Back to gross and net tons. The Great Lakes fraternity has introduced another anomaly. While — as described above — these are measurements of volume, it is Great Lakes practice to refer to long tons as gross tons and short tons as net tons. The former is customary for the measurement of iron ore, while coal cargos are measured in short tons. Neither has any relationship to register gross and net tons.

Here I digress. I started out to make a point and after a bit of investigation will end up making several. Taking two essentially sister ships, Armco and Reserve, built from the same structural plans but by two different yards and with some minor variations in accommodation arrangements (those on Armco are more extensive). Referring to two sets of ABS Registers as noted:

	ARMCO  1972	1982	RESERVE    1972	1982
Draft	25’0″	26.333’*	25’6¼”	26.333’*
Gross Tons	11,654	13,887	11,601	13,752
Net Tons	8,075	10,847	8,601	10,727
Deadweight	20,138	26,350	20,752	26,355
Displacement	26,400		26,947	34,000

*Lengthened 120′

The 1972 draft listed for Armco is the design summer draft. That listed for Reserve is the draft assigned by ABS based on the completed vessel. The draft differences, of course, account for the differences in displacement.

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References

Principles of Naval Architecture, 1939, p. 3.

Principles of Naval Architecture, 1967, Chapter VI.

Ship Design and Construction, 1980, Chapter V.

American Bureau of Shipping Registers.

About the Author: With a degree in Naval Architecture from the University of Michigan, Walter C. “Bud” Cowles rejoined the staff of The American Ship Building Company where he had worked the previous summer. Over the next 20 years — with time off for an 18-month stint in the U.S. Navy — he worked as Draftsman, Chief Hull Draftsman and Acting Naval Architect, primarily involved in the design of Great Lakes ore carriers. His career continued at Esso International Tanker Department and Exxon where he was involved in the design of ocean going tankers, semi-submersible drilling rigs and other aspects of petroleum transportation and production. Following retirement in 1985, Bud continues to maintain broad interests in maritime history and coordinated development of a book commemorating the Centennial of the Society of Naval Architects. He now lives in northern Michigan where he “spent a lifetime of summers.”

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