TELESCOPE July 1961 Vol. 10 No. 7 This Month’s Issue SONTSNTS Tt?e Green Fleet by Robert E. Lee...... 123-126 Picture Page I Telescope by Eniory J. Massman, Jr 127 PUBLISHED BY Great Lakes Maritime Institute A Report................. 128 Dossin Great Lakes Museum Report Pictures............ 129 Belle Isle, Detroit 7, Mich. George 0. Young Blue Print- E d ito r WALTER A. STERLING....130-131 Otto Strek Tl?e Big SplasL Assistant Editor by Rev. E.J.Dowling,S.J 132 William A. Hoey Fleet List Advisory Editor by Rev. E.J.Dowling,?.J..133-135 William M. Worden Great Lakes Marine News Gordon P. Bugbee by Robert Radunz...... 136-138 Associate Editors Gurators' Gorner Rev. Edward J. Dowling, S.J. by Robert E. Lee......... 139 Vessel List Editor TELESCOPE The TELESCOPE magazine is the o fficia l p ublication of the Great Lakes Maritime COVER I n s t itu t e . It was f i r s t published in 1952 as a sheet of announcements and meeting notices. Today it is a full- A proud moment is recorded by size monthly magazine, valued by mem­ bers and non-members a lik e as a source Institute and SSHSA members as the o f Great Lakes d a ta . The TELESCOPE flags of both groups fly from the includes articles of interest to almost everyone, including such subjects as SOUTH AMERICAN. (see story pp.128-9) history, salvage, current news, and model shipbuilding. There are three monthly features, current news section, vessel list of a Great Lakes fleet, and a blue­ p rin t o f a Great Lakes ship.Subscription to TELESCOPE is included in the member­ ship fee. The editors will consider articles of Great Lakes or general marine in te r e st for publication in TELESCOPE. Such material need not be expertly written, but must be of a nature suited to the purposes of the publication. Address any such material to: The Editors, TELESCOPE Great Lakes Maritime Institute Dossin Great Lakes Museum Belle Isle. Detroit 7. Mich. Regular Membership.... $4 annually LO. 7-7441 Contributing Membership..$5 annually Address a ll other correspondence to the Coordinating Director. The ed itors w ill assume no re sp o n sib ility Sustaining Membership...$10 annually for statements trade by the authors. Life Membership...... $100 Supported in part by the Detroit Historical Society Membership by the Calendar Year Single Copies 354 Telescope 123 Of all rare privileges, one of the rarest is to be a guest on a Great Lakes freighter. It is an experience that the fortunate rec­ ipient is not soon to forget.... any more than he'd forget an invit­ ation to Buckingham Palace.... and for the same reason. Freighters are not in the passenger carrying business, and for this reason one does not arrange for such passage. He must be inv­ ited as a guest of the company, and such invitation does not come for the askingl Recently, it was our pleasure to be guests of the Huron Portland Cement Company, on board the Steamer S. T, Crapo, for a round trip between Alpena and Detroit. We learned a great deal about ships and cement. We also got to know the nicest group of people you might ever meet. More of this later. We arrived at the plant gate in Alpena, Michigan at a little past noon, and were immediately taken in tow by Gerald Gilmet of the plant's security force. We indicated that we would like to take pictures of the Crapo coming in to the torturous turning operation required for docking. Mr. Gilmet escorted us to the far side of the slip, an excellent vantage point, and we watched a masterful per­ formance of ship handling. This done, we were taken to the ship and put aboard. We met Capt. James Burke who showed us to stateroom #2, and excused himself for the pressure of business. We settled down to mull over the good fortune of being where we were...but the time to mull was not long. Almost before the ship had been made fast....or so it seemed....a pair of large hoses were being connected at the deck. A set of arms were being lowered from the side wall of the silos, spaced so as to conform to the ship's hatches. Finally, when these had been lowered to a horizontal position, telescopic funnels were attached at four positions to the underside of these "arms". The arms were screw conveyors which push the bulk cement from the silo outboard, where it passes over, and falls through openings to which the telescopes have been hung. Thus the cement falls through the telescopes, and is delivered to the hatches on deck. It was here that we were given our first lesson in cement hand­ ling. Cement won't "go" anywhere. It has to be pushed, pumped, or blown. We were witnessing two of these processes in operation at the same time. It was being pushed outboard by a stoker-type screw in the conveyors, and at the same time being pumped and forced by compressed air through the hoses that had been attached to the two fittings on deck. Seven of these conveyors, each equipped with four telescopic fun­ nels; a total of twenty-eight hatches were being fed at one time. Even so, loading took better than six hours. 124 Telescope First Mate Berg took us to dinner at five o'clock, and after we had been served what was easily the finest tenderloin we've ever eaten, we were joined by Captain Burke, The loading was going well, and he was now able to relax. We then learned something that we had not known all the while we watched the loading. This was really an historic trip, for it was the last time a ship would be loaded with the equipment we had seen. Great new silos have been built, and in them have been installed a greatly improved method of loading which will cut the time to about three hours. Instead of all the cumber­ some set of conveyors, which we saw feeding into twenty-eight hatch openings, the new method would load with a single line of fourteen hatches down the center of the deck. The laborious turn would be no longer necessary in docking. It is a wonderful improvement, but we can't help being pleased for having seen the way it has been done for so many years. We left Alpena at a little after 8 PM, stood on the foredeck, and watched 4,769 tons of ship eased through a slit in a limestone bot­ tomed harbor with less than thirty feet of space over the vessel width. Steered all the way through this mile and a half cut with the wheelsman looking aft....eyes glued to range lights at the dep­ arting dock....this is mean and tricky navigation. This trip was not, in the strict sense, a vacation. We had a very serious purpose in making the voyage, yet for the ensuing night and day we learned the real meaning of rest. No telephones. No callers. No responsibilities! No traffic to fight. Oh why did the passenger boat disappear? Why must everyone be in such a hurry? Next day at 3:10 we glided by the Dossin Museum. The Huron Flag was flying at the Museum's mast-head. The Captain blew a formal salute which was answered by Bill King dipping their flag. We were impressed with this exchange, and we were also impressed with the lung power of Institute President, Captain Cowles who yelled out a greeting that we heard clearly across the river! At 3:20....five minutes beyond the ETA, we arrived at the Huron Dock in Detroit. Here we were to see the seIf-unloader at work. A conveyor is rolled out over the port side and into the silo. Once again, similar but different hoses are connected. These will pump out cement while the conveyor unloads independently. In the hull on the Crapo there are a series Of screws in the hold, moving cargo to a forward lift which carries it aloft to deposit it in to the screw conveyor which moves it outboard into the plant. Here the equipment in the silo takes over. Unloading took fourteen hours. The Huron "Green Fleet" as it is known today dates back to 1915, before which time, shipments from Alpena were handled by package freighters. Cement was shipped in cloth sacks, and a great deal of time and strength went into the process. In 1915 an idea of S. T. Crapo revolutionized the method of ship­ ping cement; carry it in bulk, instead of sacks! This idea sparked the purchase of the steamer SAMUEL MITCHELL, the first ship of the Green Fleet. The MITCHELL was^reconstructed into a self unloader in 1916, and cleared Marine City, the site of her reconstruction, heading for lpena to pick up the first shipload of cement ever carried bulk. The MITCHELL has served the Huron Fleet faithfully ever since, except for a period during World War II when, in war service,she carried sugar, coal, gypsum, and other commodities between Atlantic ports, from Nova Scotia to the West Indies. She was returned to the Huron Fleet in 1948, and again converted to a self unloader, this Telescope 125 time using the revolutionary Airsliae conveying system developed by Huron at Alpena. On September 6, 1923, the steamer JOHN W. BOARDMAN was launched at Toledo Shipbuilding Company. This vessel, built for Huron for the sole purpose of carrying cement, had twice the capacity of the MITCHELL, and benefitted from the improvements brought about by the MITCHELL's seven years service.