JANUARY ☆ FEBRUARY, 1986 Volume XXXV; Number 1 GREAT LAKES MARITIME INSTITUTE DOSSIN GREAT LAKES MUSEUM Belle Isle, Detroit, Michigan 48207 TELESCOPE Page 2 MEMBERSHIP NOTES • Attached to this issue is your membership card for 1986. By attaching it to the cover, we saved nearly five hundred dollars in first-class postage. Since most of our members have subscriptions to at least three Great Lakes marine publications, we’re trying to keep our costs down so you won’t have to make a choice to cancel one of your subscriptions. The Dossin Museum will have an exhibit at the Michigan Boat Show at Cobo Hall in Detroit from February 1st to February 9th. Members volunteering to work in the museum’s booth will be refunded their parking fee. Those interested in working in the booth should call the museum at 267-6440. The museum gift shop is selling a packet of launching photos of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Mr. Fred Plofchan was a newspaper photographer at the launching and his photo series show the Fitz waiting on the blocks and then follows her down into the water after the ropes were cut. All the 8x10, black & white photos were taken of the stern from shore and are printed on glossy paper. The set of twelve photos are $50.00 plus $2.00 for first-class postage. Write to: Dossin Museum, 100 Strand/Belle Isle, Detroit, MI. 48207. MEETING NOTICES • The January 17th entertainment meeting will be member’s slide night. Members are invited to bring fifteen of their favorite slides. (See notice on page 27.) Our guest speaker for the March 21st meeting will be a representative from the Algoma Central Railway Marine Division. Future enter­ tainment meetings are scheduled for May 16 and November 21st. Entertainment meetings begin at 8 p.m. at the museum. Future business meetings (all members are invited to attend) will be held on February 21, April 18, June 20, August 15 and October 17. At the February business meeting, the election ballot will be finalized for the May issue of Telescope. All members interested in having their name on the ballot should contact President David McDonald at the museum’s address for further information. CONTENTS • Membership Notes, Meeting Notices, etc. Lake Winnipeg Goes For Scrap by Skip Gillham An Historical Remembrance: Eighty Years Ago The Argo Grounded Off Ottawa Beach by Steve Elve 8 Shipbuilding Activities on Lake Ontario by Richard Palmer 12 Great Lakes & Seaway News Edited by Don Richards 14 January Entertainment Meeting Notice 27 Published at Detroit, Michigan by the GREAT LAKES MARITIME INSTITUTE ©All rights reserved. Printed in the United States by Macomb Printing Specialties. OUR COVER PICTURE . As economic conditions continue to dictate which ships will sail, shipping companies are scrapping vessels that are too expensive to operate. Nipigon Transport Ltd. sent the Lake Winnipeg to the scrapyard last year. This photo of her in the Welland Canal was taken from a postcard in the museum ’ s collection. □ Telescope is produced with assistance from the Dossin Great Lakes Museum, an agency of the Historical Department of the City of Detroit. JAN ☆ FEB, 1986 Page 3 LAKE WINNIPEG GOES FOR SCRAP by SKIP GILLHAM six less crew than the thirty who manned On May 2, 1985, the tug Irving Cedar Lake Winnipeg. This saves approximately put a line aboard the Lake Winnipeg at Mon­ $250,000 per year in labor costs. treal and began the long trip to Portugal. In addition a modern diesel freighter would This was not Just another overseas tow of have a seasonal fuel bill that would be lower an aged and obsolete laker, but the final by another $300,000 than that of Lake Winni­ voyage of the first Seaway-sized bulker to peg- go for scrap. Rates for the transportation of ore and grain With only twenty-two years of lake service are down. There is less demand for steel. behind her, Lake Winnipeg was finished. Although the auto industry has rebounded, Compare this with the close to sixty years of the vehicles being produced are smaller and duty for the standard bulk carrier constructed have more plastic components. in the first quarter of this century, and we Lake Winnipeg was due for her five year observe very readily that the life of a modem survey in 1985, but looking ahead there did laker is in decline. not appear to be sufficient increase in available Almost seventy maximum-sized lakers of cargoes to warrant a return to service. And 730 feet overall length have been constructed it even costs money to keep a ship of this since the Seaway opened in 1959. Economics nature idle. contributed to the Lake Winnipeg's premature When transportation rates are good, the demise. This ship’s biggest liability was her higher labor and fuel costs for a steamer steam powered turbine engine. Diesel engines can be absorbed. But in the current situation, are cheaper to operate today and require only the most efficient carriers will operate. TELESCOPE Page 4 After World War II she operated under the French flag as a tanker and was re­ named NIVOSE. Photo Photo Courtesy of Nipigon Transports Ltd. William Schell Coll. LAKE WINNIPEG under construction at Blytheswood Shipyard in Scotland. JAN ☆ FEB, 1986 Page 5 / 1 Photo Photo by George Ayoub LAKE WINNIPEG on her maiden voyage on September 23, 1962. Nipigon Transports, owners of the Lake and was part of the United States Maritime Winnipeg, was originally a Joint venture of Commission’s construction program. Hanna Mining and the Cargill Grain Company. Table Rock was 523 feet, 6 inches in length It was, in many respects, an ideal situation and 69 feet, 2 inches at the beam. Tonnage was as their vessels could carry Cargill grain to registered at 10,448 gross and 6,308 net. the St. Lawrence and return with Hanna’s She was powered by a 6,000 horsepower ore. oil-fired steam turbine engine manufactured Today the ore trade has declined, the by General Electric. The vessel served the war Schaefferville mine has closed, more grain effort as a fleet oiler and saw duty in the moves to saltwater via the Mississippi and in Pacific. the past two years, the prairie grain harvest After the war she was among the many was down. During the winter of 1984-1985, vessels sold by the Maritime Commission Cargill sold their half interest in Nipigon to private concerns. Table Rock was purchased Transports to Hanna. by Cie Nationale de Navigation in 1948 and Most of today’s cargoes are carried in self­ operated under the flag of France as Nivose. unloaders. This is especially so of ore. These Her main duty then became the transportation ships are more flexible as to cargo and take of petroleum to France. Tonnage now became far less time to unload. A quicker turn around 10,692 gross and 6,143 net while capacity time means more trips per season and potenti­ was 16,484 dwt. ally greater profits. Some U.S. ore docks In time, bigger tankers gradually made are doing away with their costly shore-based T-2’s obsolete for long deep sea runs. Some equipment. Lake Winnipeg, a straight-deck of Nivose's sisterships were lengthened, bulk carriers, was not worth reconstruction as some scrapped and others converted to new a seIf-unloader. duties. Although Lake Winnipeg was listed as being Nivose was sold to Nipigon Transports in built by the Blytheswood Shipbuilding Com­ 1961 and taken to Glasgow, Scotland. There pany of Glasgow, Scotland in 1962, she was her old cargo section was removed and scrap­ actually the reconstruction of a T-2 tanker. ped while the stem, complete with accom­ The latter vessel had been built in 1943 at modations and engine room were retained. Portland, Oregon as Table Rock (US 244865) Similar reconstruction poJects were carried TELESCOPE Page 6 out on other war built tankers and these Thus ready for service, Lake Winnipeg served the Great Lakes as Northern Venture, loaded 22,584 long tons of iron ore at Sept Hilda Marjanne, Red Wing, Pioneer Chal­ Isles, Quebec, September 18 and passed up lenger, (now Middletown), Paul H. Carnahan the Seaway for the first time, September 23 and Leon Falk, Jr. bound for Lake Erie. The bow of the Lake Winnipeg (C 304310) Lake Winnipeg soon settled in on a fairly was launched May 7, 1962, fitted to the stem routine career. Grain from the upper lakes at Barclay, Curie & Co. and sailed for the was hauled to the St. Lawrence while she re­ Great Lakes on August 21. At 730 feet in over­ turned with ore for Lake Erie or Lake Michigan all length and 75 feet at the beam, she was ports. designed to the then maximum dimensions A log from the latter part of her career of the St. Lawrence Seaway and Welland indicates that in 1979 she handled 21 cargoes. Canal locks. With a 42 foot, 6 inch depth, Ten of these were ore with loading of eight this became the first laker to exceed forty at Sept Isles and two at Quebec City. These feet. She was registered at 18,660 gross tons were discharged at Cleveland (5), Bums and 13,012 net tons. Carrying capacity was in Harbor (2), Buffalo (2) and Ashtabula (1). the 23,700 ton range. A toted of 232,061 tons were carried. The ship safely crossed the Atlantic and Grain came aboard at Thunder Bay with arrived at the Davie Shipyard in Lauzon, seven loads of wheat, one of flax and rapeseed, Quebec, on September 1.