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JULY ☆ AUGUST, 1989 VOLUME XXXVII; Number 4 TELESCOPE Page 86 MEMBERSHIP NOTES • All contracts have been approved for the installation of the Wm. Clay Ford pilothouse, but as of June 1st, the construction company had not begun to drive the pilings on the museum grounds. When the cement is poured, it will be at least thirty days before the pilothouse can be placed on it. This will give us an opportunity to install the air conditioner, heater and other small electrical items before it is placed on the barge and brought upriver. We have almost raised the funds needed for the project and a few minor details, such as new carpeting may have to be delayed for a few months. The G.L.M.I. has printed a membership brochure. Any member interested in distributing these brochures at marine functions in their cities should contact the museum. MEETING NOTICES • There are no meetings scheduled in July. Future Board of Directors meetings (which all members are invited to attend) are scheduled for Thursdays, August 10 and October 12 at 7:30 p.m. at the museum. The Curator Robert E. Lee Dinner will be held on Friday, September 15th. Our guest speaker, Mr. Mike Dixon will show slides on the history of the St. Clair Flats. CONTENTS • Membership notes 86 The Little Tug Sport by Paul Schmitt 87 The Revitalization of the Aquarama by Howard Peterson 93 1989 Model Shipbuilding Contest 98 Great Lakes & Seaway News Edited by Don Richards 100 Back Cover - Whaleback Barge 115 (US 53268). Built in 1891 at West Superior, Wisconsin. 1169 gross tons; 1110 net tons. Measured 256.0 x 36.1 x 18.9. Stranded in December, 1899 on southwest side of Pic Island in Lake Superior after breaking away from steamer Frank Rockefeller and became a total loss. No lives lost. Published at Detroit, Michigan by the GREAT LAKES MARITIME INSTITUTE ©All rights reserved. Printed in the United States by Macomb Printing, Inc. OUR COVER PICTURE . As the shipping season begins, we watch for our favorite vessels to depart their winter lay-up berths and begin regular trips into Great Lakes ports. This photo of the Nicolet entering Holland harbor on April 14th was taken by Steve Elve. □ Telescope is produced with assistance from the Dossin Great Lakes Museum, an agency of the Historical Department of the City of Detroit. JUL ☆ AUG, 1989 Page 87 THE LITTLE TUG SPORT by PAUL SCHMITT On the afternoon of June 10, 1987, commer helm and steam whistle dismounted and laying cial divers Wayne Brusate and Colette Wither on the lake bottom on the starboard side of spoon along with two members of the Fish & the hull. A search of the hulll itself showed Wildlife Service, having just concluded a side- no sign of fire or collision in evidence, scan sonar search in southern Lake Huron, but the rudder was dismounted from its skeg were returning to Lexington Harbor. As was and the vessel’s four blade wheel had been their custom, they continued to monitor the snapped off at the shaft. It lay with a broken lake bottom on their way back to port. About busket near the stem of the tug. It was 2lA miles from the harbor entrance, a small apparent from the evidence that the vessel had sonar target appeared on their depth sounder; foundered, going down stem first. rising about twelve feet off the bottom. But what vessel had they found? The tug’s The appropriate coordinates and the fifty deckhouse was gone having probably floated foot depth were quickly noted as they off during the sinking. The exposed steam continued heading for Lexington. engine revealed no identifying information. After dropping off their passengers, The ship’s bell bore no inscription and investi the divers returned to the location of the gation of the hull revealed no name sonar hit. They methodically searched the area painted or carved into it. But it was ultimately until the target was relocated. After mooring the wreck’s hull, its steel hull, along with its above the target, they called upon the help location that led to the inescapable con of “ R2-D2” , a Seascan R.O.V. (remotely clusion: Capt. Thompson’s little tug Sport had operated vehicle). With the divers attention at last been found. riveted to a T.V. monitor in the boat, “R2” The tug Sport was built in 1873 for Capt. worked its way down the mooring line. All at Eber B. Ward, by the Kirby Brothers once the unmistakable outlines of wood deck (Frank E. and Fred E.) at his Wyandotte planks took shape, then hatch ways, a wooden shipyard. The 45-ton vessel was 56.7 feet in railing and a bell. This target unlike so many length with a beam of 14.7 feet and a depth of other false alarms, was indeed a shipwreck. 9 feet. By casual observation she was a The sun was beginning to set as Wither most unremarkable little harbor tug, but first spoon and Brusate donned their diving gear impression can be very wrong. For below the and descended to the lake bottm for a closer deck, her entire hull was made of steel. She inspection. What greeted them was an intact was in fact reported to be the first commercial sixty foot tugboat, lying upright on a star vessel built of this material on the Great Lakes. board list. A search of the wreck revealed The steel used in her construction was itself the anchor neatly lying at the bow, the a testament to her owner. Capt. Ward was a TELESCOPE Page 88 pioneer in the development of the iron and ton and sailed her to Port Huron, arriving steel industry in the Great Lakes region. on the 20th. He purchased the first commercial iron from The Thompson Tug Company was founded in the Jackson mine near Marquette in 1847 and 1902 by Capt. Thompson after a brief stint as the largest vessel owner on the lakes, as manager of the Great Lakes Towing was instrumented in the building of the Soo Company’s operation at Sault Ste. Marie. Locks a few years later. He built the Headquartered in Port Huron, the firm Eureka Iron and Steel Works of Wyandotte and variously operated two or three tugs in rolling mills in Toledo and Chicago. It was in towing, wrecking and contracting service his Wyandotte steel mill in September, from Detroit to southern Lake Huron. The 1864 that he and William Kelly produced some Sport had been purchased to replace the of the first experimental ingots of steel using disabled tug Pallister in the Thompson the now famous Bessemer (oxygen) process. fleet. After some minor repairs at Marine City, It was these ingots, lying unused for ten she took over her new duties along with years, that were rolled into steel plates the firm’s other tug R.P. Thompson. for construction of the Sport. As fate would have it the Sport was The little tug was enrolled at Grand Haven, in Port Huron at the Thompson Company dock, Michigan on May 19, 1873 and began her at the foot of Butler street during the height career, with Capt. Joseph Gilson at the helm, of the Great Storm of 1913 and played a in the Wards lumber business at Ludington. major role in events that followed. On Her duties included towing lumber laden November 11th she was called upon to replace schooners into the harbor to unload their the Huron Lightship which had been driven cargo then back out to open lake again. off station during the storm. On the She would also assist larger cross-lake tugs twelfth, she transported stunned marine in delivering lumber rafts to the hungry mills. officials and members of the press to the site The Ward’s financial empire, thought to be of the overturned hull of the “mystery ship’’ the largest in Michigan at the time, was floating in the lake about twelve miles north severely strained by the financial panic of of Port Huron. From her pitching deck the 1873. The economic slow down coupled with first photos of the overturned vessel were taken the death of Capt. Ward in 1875, required by Capt. Thompson’s daughter Theresa a massive restructuring of the family’s (A vessel master in her own right, she was financial holdings. Thus on April 1, 1875, latter referred to as “Tugboat Tess’’). the tug Sport was sold to James Foly, Channey The photos accompanied banner headlines in Gibbs and Patrick Butler. They, along with her newspapers all across North America, new master, Capt. William Patterson proclaiming the “Mystery Ship’’ and detailing continued to operate her in the lumber trade the storm’s awful toll. After breifly attempting out of Ludington. She had a new deck and to assist the steamer Northern Queen, ashore upper works in 1880 and was reboilered at that at Kettle Point, the Sport returned to the port by the Davies Brothers in December of scene of the derelict floating in open lake. 1889. In 1893 the Foly interests sold her She stood watch the night of November 14, to the Cartier Lumber Company, also of warning up and downdound vessels of the Ludington. The company appears to have kept danger of collision. Finally it was from her her operating out of that port where her deck that diver William Baker descended into new masters were Capt. John Crawford the turbid lake and identified the “Mystery amd Capt. Edward Morrin. Ship’’ as the steamer Charles S. Price.

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