Saturday, April 6, 2019

Great Lakes Shipping

Seeing the Algoma Harvester tied up in the Owen Sound harbour sent me off in search of more information on Great Lakes shipping.  In particular I remembered an article in the Canadian Geographic that I thought would be worth re-reading.  I did a fair bit of chasing information for this post, and that article was worth re-reading.

The Algoma Harvester has a rounded bow, with a vertical front line, unlike many ships you may have seen.  This maximizes cargo space, maintaining the wide beam as far forward as possible, as you can see in this picture.  It also influences water flow past the ship in a way I can't explain.

The wheelhouse is at the stern, with no cabins at the bow end.  Imagine steering the bow into a lock when it's 700 feet in front of you.  There are a number of other modern features in the Harvester that minimize fuel use, maximize safety, and minimize environmental impact.

                                                                                                              Credit to Canadian Geographic

Here is the Harvester heading in to Hamilton Harbour bringing a load of iron ore pellets to DOFASCO.  One of the questions I've always had is how are these ships unloaded.  There are 17 hatches altogether, 11 of which are in this picture.  They fold back or are lifted sideways to open, and then this ship depends on dockside cranes to unload the cargo.


                                                                                                           Credit to Canadian Geographic

In a gearless bulk carrier like this (ie. having no onboard cranes) this usually involves enormous double clamshell grabs that are dropped into the hold, lift out the cargo, and transfer it to onshore.  This night-time shot from the Canadian Geographic shows both a large clamshell grab, and below it a large front end loader being lifted down into the hold.  As the grab bucket nears emptying the hold, a front end loader is used to keep scraping the remaining cargo into a central pile so the grabber can lift it out.  Crew climb down and help the final bit of this process with shovels.


Crew on these ships typically work 2 months on and 1 month off in a seven month shipping season.  They say half of the sailors on the lakes are from Newfoundland. 

Much of the ice cover was breaking up, but one fisherman still had his tent out on the ice.  Seems like a cold pastime to me.

On the west shore of the dock is a huge grain elevator.  I've never seen a ship loading there but I'll have to investigate that.

If you want to read the Canadian Geographic article, you find it here, plus a number of more pictures here.

If you want to follow ships on the lakes, the websites 'boatnerd' and 'vesselfinder' are useful.  The website 'marinetraffic' has an incredible live map showing where all ships in the world are at a given point in time.

Tabor asked yesterday 'how did I know all this stuff?  The answer is simple - I don't.  But on a topic that I find particularly interesting, I will enjoyably spend a few hours looking things up.


13 comments:

  1. Glad you have the Patience to find this interesting information out. Spent some Winters repairing Ships in Windsor while laid-off from the Auto Industry.

    Be Safe and Enjoy!

    It's about time.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Interesting! In High School my best friends Dad was on a ship...he had a few months off in the winter and only a week here and there in the summer. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Interesting post and thank you for the links. Newfoundland must export a lot of its citizens -- I once ran into a young man from Newfoundland who was working for a seismic company exploring for natural gas here in central Pennsylvania. I was quite surprised to see a truck with a Newfoundland registration plate parked along a dirt road in the woods down here.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Many years ago, before and when we were first married, Hugh carted bulk wheat to the poultry farms. Once a month or so, he would, with me as co' shoveller!!! would go to the wharf in Auckland and queue up to get a truck load of wheat from Canada. I remember sitting in the cab, and watching out the window as we were under the shute, and the sound of all that 9 tons or so of wheat rushing down onto the truck deck. Then,,wait for this... we shovelled it off ourselves, no bulk hopper then.( I was slim, maybe almost skinny, and fit) Now, I wonder just where it came from, maybe near you F.G. So seeing the carrier and the huge silos is a wonderful bonus for me today. But, this was way back in 1961 to 1964 or so.Those carriers might be pensioned off by now,or having a refit.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Very interesting. I can understand how they get so many bumps and scrapes trying to manoeuvre a vessel of that size. Like you I really enjoy finding this stuff on line - I quite often have to double-check things I think I know as well!

    ReplyDelete
  6. With their instant accessibility to just about anything anyone wants to know in the world computers sure have the ability to keep us well informed making us wiser people. Gone are the days of driving to the library, searching out a book, and leafing through it for information which was often outdated. Now from our comfortable homes we have the world at our fingertips. And an extra bonus for we Bloggers is that we are able to share the information we find with other like minded people.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks for researching that very interesting information and so cool pictures as well.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Your last shot is my favourite. Very informative!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thanks for doing the research and sharing this information. It's fascinating. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Once a professor, always a professor. It is nice that you still love to research and do the hard work for us! Thanks for the interesting post.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Very interesting. In the top picture, you can see a round white symbol with an x, right next to where the anchor chain comes out. The symbol indicates where the bow thrust-er is located, which is used for docking or turning around in tight paces. At one time I worked for a company that made the electrical drive system for the motor that turns the bow trust-er propeller. The ones we built were for Canadian Coast Guard ice breakers.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thanks for doing the research and sharing it with us here :)

    All the best Jan

    ReplyDelete