Articulated Tug & Barge WILF SEYMOUR & ALOUETTE SPIRIT

Photo by Nathan Attard - February 10, 2019

One of the first things I said to Nathan Attard, my boat watching friend in Port Colborne after he sent me a photo on Messenger on February 10th of a tug and barge at the old grain terminal where I worked unloading ships and boxcars in the early 1970's, was "I've never seen a barge so high in ballast". Oddly enough I said the same thing to my son Drew last Sunday when quite by accident the towering raised hull of the McKeil Marine deck barge ALOUETTE SPIRIT caught my eye while we playing with my grandson, Jose at H.H. Knoll - Lakeview Park across the bay. For those not aware, "in ballast" means the ship is laden only in ballast or water to give it stability which prevents the vessel from capsizing.

Yes, she was sight to behold especially when observing the lighter tone below her hull's waterline, the huge starboard rudder and notch-guards, and not to mention the tall steel box cargo frame and a hangar-like structure that were added above the main deck of this motorless vessel (a.k.a, a barge). Built at Gulfport Shipbuilding in Port Arthur, Texas in 1969, she started her usefulness as a single-hulled oil tanker and named KTC 135. In 2004 after she was removed from the oil trade, the 425' barge was bought by McKeil Marine of Hamilton and converted to transport dry bulk goods while paired with the 122' former harbour tug WILF SEYMOUR, tied off just to her stern. 

The twin screw 73 tonne bollard pull tug was also built at Gulfport Shipbuilding in 1961 and worked for the Moran Towing Company of New York City as the M. MORAN. I don't know about you but I still recall photos in boat books at the library of huge ocean liners like Cunard's QUEEN MARY or the United States Lines' AMERICA being berthed by immaculate and stalwart looking "Moran" tugs with their burgundy red wheelhouses and big white "M" on a black stack. It's the kind of work the M. MORAN with her 5,750 bhp engines would have been tasked with while working on the Hudson River for the first part of her career. In 1970 her name was changed to PORT ARTHUR and then back to M. MORAN two years later. When flagged Canadian, her name first became known as SALVAGER when McKeil Marine bought her in 2000. In 2004 she was renamed WILFRED SEYMOUR and then shortened to WILF SEYMOUR soon after. In 2006 the 122' SEYMOUR was installed with a raised upper wheelhouse for improved visibility and a Bludworth coupler pin welded into her bow which when locked into the ALOUETTE SPIRIT's notched stern, it would offer greater control when pushing the barge through the locks and many winding channels along the Seaway and Great Lakes.

While there's no sign of the Bludworth coupling pin at WILF SEYMOUR's bow in this snap, you can see her starboard side expanding pad near amidships and below her wheelhouse.

Being tucked behind the tall walls of Port Colborne Grain Terminal is a much better place to be laid up at than where the hard working tandem spent last winter. While motoring up the St. Lawrence River laden with aluminum ingots from Pointe Noire, Quebec destined for the Oswego, New York on Lake Ontario, an electrical fault in the SEYMOUR's navigation equipment, caused the ATB (articulated tug & barge) to divert from the channel and run hard aground on Lac Saint-Pierre near Louisville at 06:45 on December 25, 2018.

The upbound ATB approaching Iroquois Lock - May 10, 2016 by Helen Mott

It was definitely not the gift anyone would want to receive on Christmas morning but the situation worsened for the crew of the WILF SEYMOUR and her charge when after 4 days of trying to free the heavy barge on her own because no icebreaker or other tugs were available to assist, it was decided to abandon the ALOUETTE SPIRIT on her perch surrounded in ice until spring. With assistance of fleetmate LOIS M. the lightened ALOUETTE SPIRIT was refloated 3 month to the day of her grounding and finally delivered her load aluminum ingots to Oswego on or about April 1st. No fooling!!

Accidents happen and deliveries sometimes get delayed but since the ALOUETTE SPIRIT made her maiden voyage in 2004, more than 1,500,000 tonnes of aluminum ingots and sows have been shipped to many destinations. Whether she's carrying Quebec-made aluminum ingots to Oswego or steel slabs from Hamilton to Cleveland, her hydraulic bow ramp as seen in ship watching friend, Helen Mott's photo above, makes it easy to "ro/ro" (roll on/roll off) cargoes from dockside forklifts. When taking on grain which the ALOUETTE SPIRIT has been known to do at the Port Colborne Grain Terminal, the barge's retractable roof panels keeps the cargos dry for their transit.
A new cycle of usefulness is about to begin for the 50+ year-old WILF SEYMOUR and ALOUETTE SPIRIT as a new shipping season begins in less than a month on the Welland Canal and soon after at the Soo Locks and on the St. Lawrence section of the Seaway.
Like the other "in ballast" bulk carriers and tankers that have laid-up high and in plain sight for the winter in ports throughout the Great Lakes, they'll will be laden with a cargo and making our countries prosperous and great again. And it couldn't come at a better time.
   

UPDATE: 11.09.2023  - Sorel-Tracy, QC

  

Though primarily known for carrying aluminum ingots and slabs produced by her Sept-Iles, Quebec based namesake, Aluminerie Alouette Inc, the 425' deck barge ALOUETTE SPIRIT can carry other dry bulk cargoes in her tall retracable roofed steel hopper. It appeared grain was the cargo being haul when I caught the barge being guided to the Sorel's Richardson International Terminal wall by the 122' veteran tug WILF SEYMOUR with her slender raised wheelhouse. Easy as she goes, skipper and crew.

Veteran Tug SEAHOUND

Though I was at Toronto's Port Lands between Christmas and New Years, I just didn't have enough time to get any close up snaps of the MCKEIL SPIRIT which is a unique vessel that was built as a gearless bulk carrier and then converted into a self unloading cement carrier. Now there's an interesting story to tell about her and I'll get into it in an upcoming blogpost but on a very cold last Sunday  morning while trying to get a full length pic of her from a high berm that was covered in scrubs along Unwin Avenue and beyond mountains of road salt and concrete rumble, I was especially surprised to see tied off to the SPIRIT was the cute little toot, the 65' veteran tug SEAHOUND.

Most other times when I snapped the SEAHOUND, she'd also be laying in wait but more often tied off above the pilot master's shack and boat J.W. COOPER along West Street in Port Colborne like in these shots on November 19, 2015.

I saw on MarineTraffic that the 1000 hp twin screw SEAHOUND was active last winter  working with other McKeil tugs and barges on the wind turbine project on Amherst Island across from Bath on Lake Ontario, but any other winter when I was in Port Colborne to visit my mother, I would see her, (the tug that is)  at the same spot and ready to conduct icebreaking duties when required.

Built at Equitable Equipment in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1941, the then named MAJOR WM. E. WARNER was one of 600  ST's (Small Tugs) that were built at shipyards all over America including the Great Lakes to support the U.S.Army's  transportation services. While I could not find out where the MAJOR WM. E. WARNER was based, some ST's were involved or destroyed in WWII battle theatres like Normandy, and during the Korean and Viet Nam conflicts. She became flagged Canadian and started a new lease on life on the Great Lakes working in marine construction and dredging when she was sold to McNamara Construction Equipment of Whitby in 1957 while named "SEA HOUND" and then as CAROLYN JO when she was acquired by Pitt Engineering Construction of Toronto in 1980. Her name was returned to SEAHOUND a year after she was sold to Nadro Marine of Port Dover, Ontario, a subsidiary of McKeil Marine in 1999.
In her proud Canadian red with white trim Nadro colours and company logo displayed on her black stack with a white and red banner, the twin screw, 1000 horsepower SEAHOUND has been captured by more than just my camera lens during her work and rest breaks on the Great Lakes, St. Lawrence River and Seaway, and Welland Canal.

Michel Gosselin of St. Catharines caught the SEAHOUND assisting fleetmate LAC MANITOBA on the Welland Canal while delivering the former RCN Oberon-class submarine HMCS OJIBWA to her final home and duty as a museum at Port Burwell on Lake Erie. - November 18, 2012   

After a work project went terribly wrong in a swift hydro canal in Cornwall, Ontario, SEAHOUND was also there to bring the LAC MANITOBA home along with the McKeil tug SHARON M 1 as caught in this sad photo taken by Prescott's Helen Mott at Iroquois Lock on October 6, 2015.      

Joanne Crack, the administrator for the Facebook group, The Prescott Anchor, snapped the SEAHOUND on October 2, 2015 when moored in Prescott for supplies.

Lots of action in this photo taken December 31, 2017 by Michel Gosselin as the SEAHOUND clears a path through an unusually ice covered basin above Lock 1 in preparation for the arrival of Lower Lakes self unloader CUYAHOGA which would winter at Port Weller Dry Dock for an inspection and repairs    

Like in Michel's photo, all that remained of the Nadro Marine identity was their initials on her stack, that's barely visible  above the scrap tow, AMERICAN VICTORY's rudder as the SEAHOUND wedged herself beneath the stern and the lower Beauharnois lock wall in this pic to the right on June 27, 2018.

http://carlzboats.blogspot.com/2018/08/classic-laker-american-victory-her.html

Regardless of her new McKeil Marine strips and colour scheme, her unique size and ten tonne bollard pull were the qualities that were needed most when tasked to assist this other former World War Two veteran,  the 730' AMERICAN VICTORY to Montreal during her last voyage out of the Great Lakes  early last summer. Such is true for any job the SEAHOUND has done in her 78 years in service and proof positive that just because you're getting old it doesn't mean you don't have what it takes to get the job done. Rest when you can and give it your all when called upon. If it can work for this little pooch, it can work for us all too.
Oh YAAA!! c):-D

Classic Self Unloader KAYE E. BARKER

While the locks along the St. Lawrence and Welland Canal sections of the Seaway closed for transiting on December 31st, the Poe Lock at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan remains open so American and Canadian lakers are rushing this way and that way to get another load of iron ore and grain from Lake Superior ports before the 1,200 foot lock closes for winter repairs at midnight on January 15th.
The ship activity now is much like what we experienced during our visit along the St. Clair River in 2016 when while standing on the dock at the Bluewater Resort in St. Clair, Michigan on September 20th, no sooner had the 1000 foot articulated tug & barge (ATB) PRESQUE ISLE motored by upbound, from the distance downbound on her way to Detroit was the 767' classic straight-deck self unloader, KAYE E. BARKER minutes later. What a great venue the Bluewater Resort is.  

When she went into service in 1952 her name was EDWARD B. GREENE and was one of eight AAA KOREA-class bulk carriers especially built due to the domestic demand of ore and coal after WWII and during the Korean conflict. Like the other triple A's, the EDWARD B. GREENE was 647 feet long and built for the Cleveland Cliff Steamship Company at American Shipbuilding of Toledo, Ohio to haul iron ore from Marquette, Michigan on Lake Superior to Cleveland, Ohio on Lake Erie. However unlike the other, she had a distinctive triple deck forward house which provided large guest accommodations for her corporate passengers.

In 1976 she was lengthen to her current 767' at Fraser Shipyards in Superior, Wisconsin to increase her cargo capacity to 26,750 tons. In 1981 the GREENE returned to her original builder, in Toledo when she was converted into a self unloader with a 250' boom mounted onto her stern section which slightly reduced her cargo capacity to 25,900 tons but her turn around time to pick up another load of ore in Marquette was greatly reduced.

In 1985, her name was changed to BENSON FORD when sold to Rouge River Steel a division of Ford Corporation and began hauling ore from Marquette to Detroit. Her name was changed to KAYE E. BARKER after the wife of the Chairman of the Board and President of Interlakes Steamships, James R. Barker, when the Ford fleet was sold to the company started an exclusive contract to continue to haul Marquette ore to Ford's Rouge plant in 1989.

Riding high in ballast and pushing a white wake passed the Algoma tanker ALGOSOO and the oil refineries in Sarnia, I snapped the KAYE again upriver at Port Huron on the next day while she was motoring back to Marquette and obviously getting good use of her 8,160 horsepower diesel engines which replaced her original steam turbines in 2012.

Skimming along Michigan's upper peninsula is where I found the feisty KAYE E. BARKER this afternoon making one more run to Marquette and then back to the Rouge River  before laying up for winter. She's not the only boat out there as you can see from the MarineTraffic map. Battling strong gusts from the northeast on Lake Superior, is FAYE's husband, so to speak, the "footer" JAMES R. BARKER was well on her way to Whitefish Bay with a load of ore from Two Harbors for Nanticoke, Ontario on Lake Erie.
Until the Soo lock closes, every minute and cargo counts. But the good news is, it'll be business as usual before we know it in two and a half months. Meanwhile the rest will do us all good, don't you think? c):-D

Bulk Carrier NAREW

The dash is on. It's mid December and if all goes well, the Seaway and Welland Canal will be closed for the season just as the ball is dropping in Time Square in New York City. It'll be a nice change from last year when a deep freeze Russian blast from over the top hung over the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway near the end of December causing the seaway channels and most Great Lakes to ice over much quicker than normal. As a result of the untimely "Polar Vortex"the Montreal-based bulk carrier FEDERAL BISCAY got herself jammed in the ice at the entrance to Snell Lock and remained there for almost a week before finally being freed. It was almost another week before the BISCAY and the four other ships that were blocked in the system behind her to clear St. Lambert Lock across from Montreal on January 11.

Laden with grain from Duluth, the 492' NAREW continues to approach my lookout beneath the Windmill Point Lighthouse just east of Prescott, Ontario with the 443' Groupe Desgagnes tanker MIA DESGAGNES about 5 miles to her stern.

Built in 2012 at Sanfu Shipbuilding in Jiangsu, China, the NAREW flies the flag of Liberia though she's actually owned by the Polsteam, short for the Polish Steamship Company of Szczecin, Poland.

At 492' the "handy-size class" NAREW is slightly smaller than the first Polsteam bulk carrier I came across, the 489' NOGAT ( http://carlzboats.blogspot.com/2013/01/bulk-carrier-nogat.html) in Havana harbour almost 6 years ago, but is smaller than the IRMA (https://carlzboats.blogspot.com/2013/07/bulk-carrier-irma.html) which is just under 656'.

With all the buoys and bends on the St. Lawrence and Great Lakes behind her, regardless of what old man winter drops or blows our way from now until the end of 2018, it will be of no concern to the crew of the NAREW as the little big ship continues to make her way toward the Gulf of St. Lawrence and then to Gibraltar with her belly full of wheat from America's midwest.
On probably my last post of the year, I just want to say thanks for reading Carlz Boats and may I wish you all a Wonderful Holiday Season and a Great 2019. c):-D