Rebuilding the Great Lakes U.S. Bulk Cargo Fleet and the Metamorphosis of the Self-Unloader — Spring 1998
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The Great Lakes… 84% of the continent’s fresh water… a different story in every drop.
Authors: George H. Palmer, Jr., Carlton E. Tripp, Richard Suehrstedt and Joseph P. Fischer
PART ONE
This three-part series is the most comprehensive picture of bulk carrier design and construction between WWII and the super boats, the thousand footers of the ’70s. It gives us cause and effect on design (war-recession-uncertainty-ore shortage-Seaway-technological advances).
This series is a condensation of a chapter from a book entitled A Half Century of Maritime Technology, 1943-1993, published by the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, Jersey City, NJ. The chapter (pp. 240-257) was written by naval architects and marine engineers.
This series will appeal to admirers of the big ships. — Editors
The lockmaster at the Soo has watched a parade of changing bulk carriers pass here. Certain of these changes will govern a following design generation.
A design that becomes dominant through the years for vessels in a particular trade has a certain dignity. The classic Great Lakes bulk freighter was easily recognized by its long, low profile and bluff bow, prominent forecastle and forward deckhouse with distinctive pilot house mounted on top, and by its machinery spaces aft topped by a tall thin funnel.
These characteristics had been developed by the start of the 20th century to suit the needs and constraints of the iron ore and coal trades. The basic design evolved from conventional wooden and iron sailing and steam propelled vessels used on the lakes in general cargo trade during the 19th century. To adapt to bulk commodities, between decks were omitted, double bottoms added and bilges protected with ceiling or with side tanks, and a large number of hatchways installed in the weather deck to match the spacing of ore dock loading chutes and shore-based unloading rigs. These vessels became known as “straight deckers,” and the vestigial term “spar deck” still refers to the weather deck on Great Lakes bulk carriers. The “main deck” has shrunk to a shell stringer at mid-depth.
A pilot house with unimpeded 360-degree visibility at the bow gave the master close view of locks and docks, and facilitated the lake practice of steering by aligning the funnel with the wake. The tall funnel originally was necessary for providing natural draught for the coal burning boilers.
Other less apparent characteristics necessary for the sea keeping and strength of these vessels and for protection from contact damage in narrow shallow channels and at locks and docks were provided by considerable sheer and camber of weather decks, tumblehome, deadrise and ample bilge radius to reduce grounding damage.
These characteristics, dear to the aesthetic eye of the Naval Architect, became less and less important as vessel mass and depth increased and all but disappeared in vessel design of the huge barge-like self-unloaders ultimately developed.
The most significant changes in the last half-century are not in individual special purpose vessels, but in typical vessels of the Great Lakes bulk carrier and self-unloader fleets as a whole. The physical limitations of the channels and locks, and the economic and political constraints on transportation of bulk materials within the Great Lakes watershed and St. Lawrence River defined the size and operation limits of these formerly landlocked vessels. In order for the fleet to economically maintain a fairly constant demand averaging 200 million tons per year in domestic trade, major changes in vessel design and operation were made.
These changes resulted in an increase in an average trip capacity per vessel from less than 10,000 deadweight tons in 1943 to over 60,000 tons in the latest self-unloader. They occurred in five phases, each involving a major condition or building program. Each phase was a consequence of at least one significant political or economic event and a multitude of minor developments. All phases overlapped. The one common inducement for change was any opportunity to increase unit capacity. These events were varied, with political items that affected trade patterns as in the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway, economic pressures as in the reorganization of the railroads, labor unrest, and technological advances such as improvements in construction methods, powering and cargo handling. This article will present cause and effect and typical characteristics of prototype vessels relating to each phase are discussed in turn.
Phase I (1941-1946): Wartime
At the beginning of 1943 there were about 350 active vessels in the Great Lakes bulk ore carrier and self-unloader fleets, with total annual capacity of about three million long tons. Of these, most were old existing vessels, some dating to the turn of the century. Except for five modern turbine driven 14,000 ton ore carriers of U. S. Steel Corporation’s “Benjamin Fairless” class in service by 1943, most were 10,000 deadweight tons or less, limited in draft to 20 feet by the St. Marys River channels at the Soo locks. They were powered with steam reciprocating engines between 1100 and 2600 IHP.
To ensure wartime supply of ore to the steel mills in the midwest, the government sponsored 16 bulk carriers (U. S. Maritime Commission design L6) which were delivered to the various major ship owners in 1943 from American Ship Building Co. shipyards in Lorain, Ohio (Hulls 826-829), and Cleveland, Ohio (Hulls 1009 & 1010), and from Great Lakes Engineering Works shipyards in Ecorse, Michigan (Hulls 290-293), and Ashtabula, Ohio (Hulls 522-525). These vessels followed traditional Great Lakes designs with a mixture of welded and riveted structural details developed for the SS Benjamin F. Fairless, AmShip Hull 824, a pre-war design and first of five sister ships delivered to U. S. Steel Corporation in 1942 and 1943, but were powered with 2500 IHP reciprocating steam engines.
These vessels typically had a combination of transverse framing on the side shell, with longitudinal framing on the deck and bottom, and on the sheer strake shell plating. Transverse framing of side shell plating provided additional support for contact with dock and lock walls and continued this construction post-war. Deck and shell butts were welded, seams and frame connections were riveted in the earlier post-war hulls. Gradually, owners and builders became more accustomed to welded construction. After some initial bad experiences with fractures, the designs of riveted seam and frame connections in later hulls were eventually modified to welded structures. Since most welded repair work and much of the new construction was done in Great Lakes yards during winter under frigid conditions, considerable experimentation in welding procedure was carried out to determine the lower ambient temperature limits of welding processes. Consequently, substitution of welding in lieu of riveting was generally accepted somewhat later on the lakes than in warmer climates.
Phase II (1945-1965): Post-War Repairs and Interim Conversion of Ocean Vessels
After the war (August 1945), the demand for steel remained near production limit of the mills, and the Great Lakes ore fleet was operating at full capacity. After years of minimal repairs, the condition of the over-aged vessels (nearly half the fleet) was critical and shipyard repair facilities and dry docks were barely adequate. Ships were repaired in the winter when the lakes were closed to navigation due to ice. Working cargo docks became repair berths.
Traditionally, crew members became shipyard workers during that period and signed back on their individual ships in the spring. Consequently, shipyards were reluctant to expand their facilities and maintained only enough labor force for emergency repairs during the sailing season, and for maintenance on ferries and other craft having availabilities during other seasons.
Faced with the obsolescence of the older vessels, yet uncertain of the future effect of the proposed St. Lawrence Seaway and the adequacy of the domestic ore supply, owners undertook programs of necessary repairs to existing vessels. These programs included replacement of side tanks, tank top and hold bulkhead structures of the new and larger vessels, particularly those built after 1920. Replacement of inadequate machinery, reboilering and upgrading of the electrical equipment were prompted by the plentiful supply of war surplus and salvaged small turbo-generators, switchboards and pumps. Improvements to accommodations and galley spaces were carried out to increase crew comfort and to gain a few more years of useful life.
Conversion of Ocean Vessels
Owners started a new construction program of replacement, but the capacity of the landlocked shipyards was not adequate for immediate needs. As an interim measure, nine surplus ocean vessels from the U.S. Maritime Administration reserve fleet were purchased and of these, eight were converted in coastal shipyards to Great Lakes configuration and towed up the Mississippi River system to Chicago to be completed at Great Lakes shipyards as replacement tonnage. The ninth was converted into the passenger excursion vessel Aquarama. These vessels, although they had too much power and too little capacity compared with the optimum lake design of that period, were immediately available and augmented the fleet for many years until they were superseded by more efficient vessels. These reserve fleet vessels consisted of one Victory VC-2, five C-4 troop ships, one T2 tanker and one C1-M-AV1 cargo vessel. Hulls were altered to suit contemporary cargo hold and hatchway configurations of Great Lakes bulk carriers. Two were rebuilt as self-unloaders and the C1-M-AV1 as a self-unloading bulk cement carrier.
Phase III (1950-1960): New Construction — Conventional
The decade starting in 1950 was not one of confidence for the shipyards on the Great Lakes. Existing facilities were old and obsolete, and had a small but skilled labor force seasonally employed in both new construction and repair simultaneously, which did not promote efficient cost control. The four major shipyards (Manitowoc Shipbuilding, Inc., American Ship Building Company, Defoe Shipbuilding Company and Great Lakes Engineering Works) had each developed their own standard details and designs over the years. Another major yard on the Lakes, Fraser Shipyards, Inc., located at the head of navigation at Superior, Wisconsin, operating at capacity in repairs, upgrading and repowering of the existing fleet during this period, did not participate in the new construction of bulk freighters. In the following decades Fraser became a major contractor for midbodies, lengthening and converting to self-unloaders to be described in Phase IV.
Owners, needing to keep in the shipbuilders’ good graces because of the limited number of facilities available, tended to award single new ship contracts among them in turn. Of these shipyards, Great Lakes Engineering Works was the most conservative, American Ship Building Company the most diversified, and Manitowoc the most innovative, specializing in self-unloaders. Defoe specialized in building naval vessels. Unless there was good probability of continuing contracts for new vessels, the shipyards were not disposed to make extensive plant improvements. Owners, however, were faced with major uncertainties in the foreseeable future which made them reluctant to contract for multiple orders of new building. New contracts were initially parceled out to the major yards preserving the traditional status quo.
Uncertainties facing the bulk carrier trade on the Great Lakes primarily were the future of the midwestern steel mills and the exhaustion of the high grade Mesabi Range ore supply in Minnesota. A secondary uncertainty, but no less foreboding, was the inevitable competition from foreign steel and ore sources due to the eventual opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Domestically in 1953, there were 285 vessels in the U.S. bulk fleet owned or operated by 23 local companies. Of these, the majority of the vessels were over-aged and obsolete.
The Wilfred Sykes Prototype
The new building on the Lakes got off to a slow start with the SS Wilfred Sykes, delivered by American Ship Building Company in Lorain to Inland Steel Company in January 1950. The dimensions of the Wilfred Sykes were the maximum determined by the limitations at the loading and unloading ports, the locks and channels, the building facilities and consideration of good proportions. It was 678 feet long overall by 70 feet in beam and 37 feet deep, and set the pattern for the new construction in the 1950s.
“Blueprint plan sheet (1 of 1) entitled “Wilfred Sykes, 1950.” The drawing shows a starboard side profile view of the steamship along with details of the hull lines, masts, forward and aft cabin areas, and hatch cover crane. The drawing was done by James B. Jones of the Great Lakes Model Shipbuilders Guild and is based upon “plans supplied by Inland Steel Company.” The plan is dated July 2, 1954.”
Photo and description courtesy of Detroit Historical Society.
The general arrangement and major structural details were similar to time tested pre-war designs except for replacement of the aft deckhouse with a poop superstructure which reduced the freeboard in accordance with the current load line regulations. Anticipating improvements in the limiting dimensions of locks, channels and terminal facilities, the Wilfred Sykes was designed with deadweight capacity it could not immediately utilize at the prevailing drafts. Consequently the next vessels built were not true sister ships to the Sykes, but were 40 feet shorter and had slight changes of arrangement and structural details depending on owner preferences and shipyard practices.
During 1952 and 1953 a group of eight vessels were produced in three Lake Erie shipyards of American Ship Building Company and Great Lakes Engineering Works for five different owners following the basic Great Lakes bulk carrier design of the Wilfred Sykes, but the principal dimensions of 620 feet length, 70 feet beam and 36 feet depth, giving about 19,500 LT deadweight capacity at prevailing summer drafts. Concurrently, two smaller but similar vessels were built at the Defoe Shipbuilding Company in Bay City, Michigan, for two different owners active in the grain trade with 17,500 LT deadweight capacity each, having length of 613 and 617 feet, 67 feet beam and 35 feet depth.
A group of three 18,000 LT deadweight vessels were designed and built by Bethlehem Steel Corporation’s Sparrows Point shipyard. These vessels measured 610 feet length, 70 feet in beam and 37 feet in depth. These vessels were built in Maryland and delivered to the Great Lakes via the Mississippi River system.
By 1953 owners had become accustomed to the 75-foot beam of the C-4 ocean vessel conversions and the usual length of the Sykes, so with improvements in the limiting constraints of the building berths the shipyards and owners altered the design of successive vessels to suit the desire of the owners for greater capacity and greater power. Length overall was increased progressively until 1960, when the last new conventional vessel of this new construction phase, the Edward L. Ryerson, was built with a deadweight capacity of about 26,000 LT with a length overall of 730 feet, beam of 75 feet, depth of 39 feet and power had increased to 9,900 SHP.
At the time of this new construction phase the United States merchant marine was committed to steam propulsion. Following the massive wartime construction programs for manufacturing boilers, turbines and reduction gears for naval and merchant vessels, there was available a plentiful supply of domestically built new machinery of proven design. Also Great Lakes engineers for generations had been accustomed to steam propulsion, albeit mostly with coal burning boilers and reciprocating engines. From studies and model tests the owners and the designers of the Wilfred Sykes had concluded that speed of 16 MPH and a deadweight capacity of 21,000 LT would be optimum for an ore carrier on the Great Lakes and designed the vessel accordingly. An appropriate propulsion power plant was chosen to be a 7,700 SHP cross compounded steam turbine geared to a single separable bladed propeller at 100 RPM. Boilers chosen were two drum D-type, oil burning, producing superheated steam at 450 PSI and 750 degrees F. The auxiliary machinery was electric with 440 volt, three-phase power supplied by two 500 KW generators. Although coal was still a major cargo on the lakes it was decided that the new vessel would burn Bunker C residual oil, then the customary fuel for the U.S. merchant marine. Interestingly, the Wilfred Sykes base terminal was Inland Steel Company’s mill at Indiana Harbor which was adjacent to the major oil refineries in the Chicago area. Pipelines had been extended from the oil producing states on the Gulf of Mexico and from western Canada to the midwest with major bunkering depots at Chicago, Toledo, and Sarnia, Ontario. Considering that the coal mining industry had considerable financial interests in these shipping companies, some of the new vessels were designed with boilers and bunkers which could be converted to burn either coal or oil. Eight vessels were initially fitted to burn coal, but following labor difficulties at the coal mines in 1970, most lake vessels were refitted to burn oil. Ultimately coal bunkering facilities along the chain of the Great Lakes were phased out.
Construction of the Wilfred Sykes and its succeeding group of vessels followed the customary Great Lakes practice of building on a level bank and side launching into a graving dock, slipway or river. Shell plating seams and frame connections were riveted and plate butts welded. Erection of shell plating was strake by strake, from the keel outward and upward with seam rivet holes sub-punched and reamed to match holes in adjacent strakes. Internal structure was generally welded with size of sub-assemblies limited by the shipyard’s crane capacity.
As the new construction program progressed and shipyards improved their facilities and equipment to handle larger sub-assemblies, dimensions of following vessels increased and arrangements were altered to suit individual owners’ changing requirements.
During this phase only four new vessels were built between 1952 and 1959 as self-unloaders; all built at Manitowoc Shipbuilding, Inc. These vessels were similar in hull lines to the contemporary “straight deckers” of the period except they were two feet greater in beam and up to 4 feet greater in depth. Propulsive power was the same, but they were fitted with larger generators to provide for unloading machinery demand. Arrangement of hoppered cargo holds, hold conveyers, bucket elevator and the conveyer boom and “A” frame forward were typical of pre-World War II self-unloader design. No further new construction of self-unloaders was undertaken in this phase of replacement tonnage since the augmentation by converted ocean vessels and small existing lake ore carriers was suitable to provide adequate capacity in the stone and coal trades until the development of taconite pellets made the general use of self-unloading vessels feasible in the ore trade in the 1970s, as described in Phases IV and V.
The SS Cason J. Callaway was delivered by Great Lakes Engineering Works to the Pittsburgh Steamship Company in October 1952, followed by the SS John G. Munson, the first post-war new self-unloader delivered by Manitowoc Shipbuilding, Inc. to the Michigan Limestone Division of U. S. Steel Corporation in August 1952, and the SS Richard M. Marshall from Defoe Shipbuilding Company to Great Lakes Steamship Company in August 1953. The SS Johnstown, built for Bethlehem Steel Company’s Great Lakes fleet by Bethlehem-Sparrows Point Shipyard in Maryland in 1952, was the first of three new hulls built at that yard, dismantled and towed up the Mississippi River system for completion at Chicago. These were the lead vessels from each of these yards in the Phase III group of twenty-five conventional vessels built in U. S. shipyards for Great Lakes service from 1950 through 1960.
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