Master alone on bridge when bulker grounded while leaving dock

Professional Mariner StaffJuly 23, 2024

(WASHINGTON) — The bulk carrier American Mariner was leaving a dock near Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, last year when the master — acting alone on the bridge during complicated maneuvers — overshot a turn and grounded on shoals, damaging three ballast water tanks, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reported Tuesday.

The vessel was heading outbound in the Vidal Shoals Channel en route to Superior, Wis., when it grounded on Jan. 7, 2023. NTSB investigators found that the master of the vessel was alone on the bridge at the time. Other factors compromising the master’s ability to successfully navigate the vessel included transiting in the dark, unlit channel buoys, and not using all available features in the electronic chart system.

Damage to the port ballast water tanks of the bulk carrier American Mariner after the grounding. U.S. Coast Guard photo

The NTSB found that the master’s initial angle of departure from the dock and close approach to the shoal water positioned the vessel at a poor angle to successfully maneuver into the channel, which resulted in the vessel overshooting the turn and grounding on the opposite side of the channel. The grounding resulted in $600,000 of damage to the vessel. No pollution or injuries were reported.

“While maneuvering in confined waters, it is difficult for a single bridge crewmember to effectively drive, look out and monitor and use available bridge equipment,” the report said. “Owners, operators and vessel masters are responsible for ensuring that vessel bridge teams are staffed with a sufficient number of certificated/credentialed mariners who are familiar with all bridge navigation equipment and able to independently take immediate action.”

Click here to read the complete report:   Grounding of the Bulk Carrier American Mariner (ntsb.gov)

– National Transportation Safety Board

Toronto to explore “relief” vessels to ease Islands ferry lineups

 Jon Woodward

CTV News Toronto Videojournalist

Published July 28, 2024 1:47 p.m. CDT

As the city of Toronto waits for delivery of two new electric ferries to ease long lines at the ferry terminal to the Toronto Islands, city staff have now been tasked with finding “relief ferries” to tackle congestion in the meantime.

 Mayor Olivia Chow said she’s not sure the best way to get the vessels in place, but said that it’s important to find a solution for ferry lineups which in some cases have stretched from the Jack Layton Ferry Terminal to around the front of the Westin Hotel.

 “My motion is to say, “Hey, why don’t we see if we could lease, rent, something in between now and the end of 2026 to get people over to the islands,” Chow told council on Thursday as she advanced a motion to find other vessels.

 The motion came as Toronto approved the purchase of two new electric ferries to carry people to the Toronto Islands at a cost of $92 million.

 The boats will replace aging ferries that have been in service for between 61 and 114 years. They will be built in Romania by Damen Shipyards Galati.

 They’re expected to be delivered in late 2026 to early 2027. City council heard they will take six minutes to charge, can travel four times across the harbour without charging, will save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on fuel and will increase the capacity of 1,000 passengers per trip for the passenger vessel.

 Similar vessels ordered from the same company to Kingston to serve the Kingston-Wolfe Island route have been out of service, but council heard that’s because the charging infrastructure on that route hasn’t yet been built.

 Councillor Paula Fletcher urged the city to ensure the chargers are in place for when the vessels arrive. She said another option that is being explored for easier access to the islands, a bridge, would interfere with commercial shipping.

 “I’ve done the numbers as far as the number of ships that travel there. There are 200. Economic-wise, let’s put that puppy to bed right now,” she said.

 Another motion, proposed by Deputy Mayor Ausma Malik, directed city staff to find new ways of offering tickets to the ferries, including linking it to the regional’s transit payment system, the Presto Card.

Ottawa County
Ships parade down channel at Coast Guard Festival

by: Rachel Van Gilder, Brittany Flowers

Posted: Jul 29, 2024 / 12:22 PM EDT

GRAND HAVEN, Mich. (WOOD) — It’s a fan favorite at the Grand Haven Coast Guard Festival: Vessels decked out in flags cruised down the Grand Haven channel Monday for the annual Parade of Ships.

It featured U.S. Coast Guard Cutters Spar, Mobile Bay, Morro Bay and Buckthorn, as well as Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Samuel Risley, all escorted by smaller U.S. Coast Guard and Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office boats.

Coast Guard Festival organizers expecting record crowds for 100th anniversary

People lined up along the channel to welcome the ships, waving and cheering as the vessels blew their horns and an orange Coast Guard helicopter circled above. The Morro Bay sprayed water on some bystanders.

An often overlooked branch of the military because of its size, the 43,000 active-duty men and women in the Coast Guard serve an instrumental purpose. Most Coast Guard members are stationed in cities along the Atlantic, Pacific, Great Lakes and Gulf coasts. Assignments normally last between two and four years, while deployment can last for days or months.

“I love the Coast Guard and what they do, how they serve their country, their willingness to put their lives on the line for others. It’s amazing,” Shirley Hawks said. “They do not get the support that they deserve. They’re not noted. People don’t realize how much they give up.”

“Especially now they aren’t getting much gratitude, the armed forces so I appreciate them and I want them to know that,” Richard Hawks said.

The Coast Guard Festival, which began Friday, is celebrating 100 years. The first event in 1924 was just a picnic for Coast Guard members and their families. Now, it’s a huge party that draws some 350,000 people from around the country. It’s a boon for the Grand Haven economy, with shop owners ready for a busy stretch.

“We do schedule our vacation specifically for this week because there’s so much more to do with the Coast Guard Festival,” Caitlin Williams said. “It’s great experience for the kids. They get to see these ships that are just huge in size and they do free tours and a lot of stuff’s free, so it’s a great family event because you don’t have to have a big budget to do it.”

The festival runs through Sunday.

Algoma adds another tanker

Researchers discover site of 1893 schooner wreck in Lake Michigan in just 50 feet of water

By Forrest Brown, CNN

Published 7:40 PM EDT, Thu July 25, 2024

More than a century after sinking, the Margaret A. Muir was found in about 50 feet of water in Lake Michigan in May 2024. Shown here is a rare internal view of the her unusual stepped sternpost construction.

More than a century after sinking, the Margaret A. Muir was found in about 50 feet of water in Lake Michigan in May 2024. Shown here is a rare internal view of the her unusual stepped sternpost construction. Tamara Thomsen, State Historical Society of Wisconsin

The November 1975 shipwreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is probably the most famous one of the Great Lakes, thanks to Gordon Lightfoot’s hit ballad. But a new discovery is putting another ship – the Margaret A. Muir – on the map.

An intrepid team of maritime historians working with the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association recently located the schooner that was lost to a fierce gale on the morning of Saturday, September 30, 1893.

The Muir – a 130-foot, three-masted ship built in 1872 – was found under about 50 feet (15 meters) of Lake Michigan water off Algoma, Wisconsin, according to a WUAA news release.

It sank only a few miles off the entrance to Algoma Harbor, according to the release. It went undetected for more than a century despite hundreds of boats passing over it each fishing season.

Maritime historian Brendon Baillod, who found the ship on May 12, 2024, along with teammates Robert Jaeck and Kevin Cullen, said it’s a significant archaeological discovery.

“One of the things that’s important about this wreck is that it’s opened up – we call it ‘filet of schooner’ – where the deck came off and then the sides opened up. And we can see the architectural construction details of how a 19th-century Great Lakes wooden vessel, a schooner, was built,” he told CNN Travel.

“This is almost like somebody architecturally dismantled it to show you exactly how it was built,” he said. In addition, all its deck gear remains, including two giant anchors and hand pumps.

This is not too unusual in the Great Lakes, whose cold, fresh waters often provide an environment for preservation, according to the University of Buffalo.

Altogether, these commercially vital waters are estimated to hold the remains more than 6,000 ships going back to the 17th century, creating a mysterious and fascinating lore of which the Muir is a part.

Fighting for their lives

Like other working ships of the late 1800s, the Margaret A. Muir was part of the booming maritime trade economy of the Great Lakes, which had access to the Atlantic Ocean via the St. Lawrence Seaway.

In the icy depths of Lake Superior, one shipwreck mystery is solved — but another remains

“This was … the engine that fueled the Industrial Revolution in America. All the raw goods – the copper, the iron ore, the lumber that built our cities came out of the Great Lakes via this huge freshwater freeway,” Baillod said.

The Muir “was intended primarily for the Great Lakes grain trade, although it carried many diverse cargoes, frequenting all five Great Lakes over her 21-year career,” according to the release.

On that calamitous day when the Muir’s labors ended, Capt. David Clow reported the schooner, carrying a load of salt, had cleared the Straits of Mackinac and was making its way to the Wisconsin coast. According to the release, a 50-mile-per-hour gale struck at about 5 a.m.

The ship was holding up to the sudden storm well until about 7:30 a.m. when the waves increased dramatically, with some breaking over its decks.  The vessel was nearing Algoma (back then called Ahnapee) when Clow discovered several feet of water in the hold.

Reports said he “immediately ordered the crew to abandon ship.  No sooner than the order was given, the ship lurched violently and plunged for the bottom, taking Captain Clow’s faithful dog and ship’s mascot with it,” according to the WUAA release.

Fortunately for the crew of six, they were able to make their way through 15-foot seas to the safety of shore. Townspeople spirited the freezing and soaked crew to a hotel and gave them dry clothes.

The loss of his faithful pooch was tough for Clow, though. He was reported as saying that “I would rather lose any sum of money than to have the brute perish as he did.”

Making the news of the day

The loss of the Muir was covered by major Great Lakes newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press and the Plain Dealer of Cleveland.

In a roundup of “Marine Notes” on October 4, 1893, the Tribune reported the survivors had arrived in Chicago, and “had lost everything except what they had on.”

It also quoted Clow as saying, “I have quit sailing for the water seems to have no liking for me.” It’s understandable that he felt the lakes had turned on him. In the previous sailing season, the Tribune wrote that Clow had run the schooner A.P. Nichols on rocks at an entrance to famed Green Bay.

Demonstrating how treacherous this line of work could be, the Free Press reported the gale that took down the Muir claimed other ships as well, resulting “in a long list of wrecks being added to the remarkably heavy marine losses of the present season.”

The Muir re-emerges

The Margaret A. Muir eventually became just another name, another footnote in the vast sea of Great Lakes shipwreck history. It might have remained that way if not for the efforts of Baillod and his team.

Baillod grew up on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and his fascination with a couple of wooden hulks in Lake Superior near his house sparked a lifelong interest in the maritime history of the Great Lakes.

About 30 years ago, Baillod began compiling a database of Wisconsin’s missing vessels, he said. The Muir stood out to him as one that had a good possibility of being found.  He graded the ships on factors such as accurate accounts from survivors of where a ship went down.

“The Margaret Muir was in the top 10 because I had a very good account from her captain, and I also had really good accounts from the local newspapers because her masts were breaking the surface after she sank and she was a hazard to navigation,” Baillod said.  “She was sort of in the way of the harbor mouth a few miles out. So I had a strong inkling that I could find her.”

In 2023, Baillod approached the WUAA about undertaking a search for the Muir. A year later, it all came together.

Baillod and his team struck gold at the very end of the very first day of looking.

It was “around 4 o’clock. And as we’re pulling up the sonar, the darn wreck crawls across the screen, we caught her in the last 30 seconds that we could have.

“We were very excited to find her because we had done all this research, like I had done genealogies of the captain and of the builders and the owner and I had traced her entire career,” he said. “So it was really exciting to actually find the physical remains of the vessel itself on the bottom.”

Within weeks, thousands of high-resolution images of the site were made, the release said.

The WUAA is now working to nominate the site for the National Register of Historic Places. If it’s accepted to the register, it would join the schooner Trinidad, which the team located in deep water off Algoma in June 2023.

“The reason we look for these wrecks is we want to share them with the communities of Wisconsin because these are some of the last tangible hooks that these communities have to their maritime history,” Baillod said.

SS Badger Bans 2017-2021 Chrysler Pacifica Plug‑In Hybrids

Due to battery fire risk and safety recall, 2017-2021 Chrysler Pacifica Plug‑In Hybrids (PHEVs) are no longer permitted on the SS Badger until the service recall is completed. To check if your vehicle is affected, please visit Mopar recalls and enter your VIN.

If you were planning to sail with one of the affected vehicles, please send proof of the recall repair to info@ssbadger.com with your reservation information and we will make a note in your reservation. Otherwise, you can bring proof with you to the dock.

Failure to do so will result in denying your vehicle passage on the SS Badger.

Lake Michigan Carferry takes the safety of our passengers, crew members and vessel seriously.

On July 18th, 2024,  Stellantis, makers of the 2017-2021 Chrysler Pacifica Plug‑In Hybrids (PHEVs), issued a recall due to the risk of battery fire. Stellantis has advised owners not to recharge their vehicles or park near other vehicles or structures until the recall repairs are completed. Customers have reported smoke inhalation while the vehicles were turned off; some occurred while recharging. It has been determined the safety risks were linked to an abnormality in individual cells of the model’s high-voltage battery pack.

Lake Michigan Carferry

Andrie Inc. Bought by Rand Logistics

Editor’s note: What follows is the text of a letter from the CEO of Andrie Inc. to employees.

ILM Employees

We are excited to announce that Andrie has been acquired by Rand Logistics and will be joining the Rand platform of maritime focused companies. Rand operates a fleet of vessels, including self-unloading bulk carriers and tug/barge units and serves a diverse customer base, including steel, aggregates, and agri-food industries.

As Andrie embarks on this new chapter, I want to assure you that ILM will retain the identity, values, and culture that have made ILM successful. ILM will continue to operate as a standalone business unit, with the same leadership and management team currently in place. We will continue to uphold our mission to empower our employees to service our customers in a safe, cost-effective, and environmentally sound manner.

At the same time, we will embrace the opportunities and challenges that come with being part of a larger organization. We will strive to learn from our new colleagues, share our best practices, and collaborate on solutions. We will continue to strive to exceed the expectations of our employees, customers, partners and stakeholders by delivering safe, high-quality, and reliable services.

Sven Christensen
President

H. Lee White Has Possible Loading Issues at Marquette

Don’t Write Off Michipicoten Just Yet

New Lock project on schedule, if funding keeps flowing

The New Lock project in Sault Michigan will be completed and open to shipping in 2030 as long as U.S. federal government funding keeps flowing in a timely manner to the crucial megaproject.

Officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Detroit District’s New Lock at the Soo project brought stakeholders and the media up to date on the project in a webinar held Tuesday. The U.S. government approved the New Lock project in America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018.

The New Lock at the Soo project is being built in three phases:

• Phase 1 – upstream approach channel deepening to accommodate larger ships passing through the new lock (2018-2021)
• Phase 2 – construction of new upstream approach walls and related infrastructure (2021-2024)
• Phase 3 – Construction of the new lock (2023-2028)

Phase 2 is 95 per cent complete. Phase 3 — construction of the New Lock — got underway in July 2022 and crews are busily working as project officials continue to rely on U.S. government funding to complete the project.

Construction work in 2024 has focused on dewatering the construction site, electrical work, constructing a new bridge to a new power plant, demolition of the old Sabin Lock, filling up the old Davis Lock chamber and excavating bedrock in order to start pouring concrete for the new lock’s walls this fall, officials said Tuesday.

The site’s MacArthur Lock is still operational and can accommodate smaller vessels but only the Poe Lock is able to accommodate the 1,000-foot-long ships that transport millions of tons of iron ore from mines in Minnesota and northern Michigan to steel mills along the Great Lakes.

Crews are actively trying to keep the Poe Lock running while the new lock is being constructed.

“The Poe Lock is currently operating on borrowed time. It’s a 55-year-old lock with a 50-year lifespan and it’s the Achilles Heel of our nation’s supply chain of iron ore,” said Mollie Mahoney, New Lock project manager, at Tuesday’s webinar.

“It’s estimated that within a two-to-six-week unscheduled outage of the Poe Lock, 75 per cent of our nation’s high-strength steel production would cease. That would shut down automobile, appliance and heavy equipment manufacturing across our entire nation. A six-month unscheduled outage would result in 11 million jobs lost and a $1.1 trillion economic impact,” Mahoney said.

Maintenance work on the Poe Lock will continue into 2025, including replacement of some of its components, officials said.

The New Lock at the Soo is being built where the Sabin Lock once was and will be the same size as the Poe Lock (1,200 feet long, 110 feet wide and 32 feet deep).

The New Lock project has been funded in the amount of $1.967 billion (USD) to date.

Officials say that despite the entire New Lock project having been approved there are several rounds of waiting on bundles of government funding to be okayed by Congress in order for the project to be done by 2030.

“The next step really is to continue to work through the budgeting process which is an appropriations process in Congress,” said Kevin McDaniels, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Detroit District deputy engineer.

“Both the House and the Senate have committees that work on those and there’s also a President’s budget. The President submits a budget, makes its way over to Congress, both the House and the Senate will do an appropriations bill and eventually go to conference to seek resolutions of those. Really at this stage of the game there’s no more authorization needed, it’s just going through competing with all the other priority projects across the country,” McDaniels said.

While $1.967 billion has been approved so far, McDaniels estimated the final price tag for the New Lock will be around $3 billion (USD).

“Estimates are good at one specific point in time but we do think that if we were to find additional (Congressional) funding our current cost estimate would probably be a little bit under the $3 billion mark. At this point in time we’re looking at, if we stay on track, probably in the $2.9 billion range,” McDaniels told SooToday.

The existing Poe Lock will continue to operate alongside the new lock long-term after the New Lock opens, McDaniels said.

Soo Today

Register now for 411-mile Great Lakes relay swim on ill-fated Edmund Fitzgerald route

SAULT STE. MARIE, MI – Registration is now open for a relay swim event that will mark the 50th anniversary of the tragic shipwreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Open water swimmers are invited to participate in the Edmund Fitzgerald Memorial Swim on July 26, 2025.

The 17-stage, 411-mile relay swim begins in Lake Superior, where the shipwreck lies, and ends in Detroit, the ship’s intended destination. The event will be the subject of a documentary film.

Seventeen teams of 4 relay swimmers each will symbolically complete the ship’s intended route and cargo delivery. Iron ore pellets – which come from the same dock in Superior, Wis., where the ship took on its last load – will be passed between the participants and delivered to dignitaries in Detroit.

The event is organized by Jim Dreyer, who is known for swimming across all five Great Lakes.

“The Edmund Fitzgerald Memorial Swim presents epic, once-in-a-lifetime experiences for up to 68 swimmers to be part of history, play a role in a documentary film, and swim where no one has ever swum before and may never swim again,” Dreyer said.

The swim is tentatively planned to begin at the Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck site, starting with a memorial ceremony. It will conclude at Belle Isle in Detroit where dignitaries will receive the iron ore pellets. The bell at the Mariners’ Church of Detroit will then ring 29 times – once for each man who died aboard the ship – just as it did 50 years before.

Participants will swim the St. Marys River, the entire length of the St. Clair River, and across the open waters of Whitefish Bay, Lake Huron between Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas, the mouth of Saginaw Bay, and Lake St. Clair.

Swimmers will raise funds for the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society (GLSHS) to preserve the Whitefish Point Light Station.

“The Edmund Fitzgerald has come to represent, in many ways, shipwrecks in general on the Great Lakes, and the Whitefish Point Light is the most important beacon for all vessels entering or leaving Lake Superior,” said Bruce Lynn, GLSHS executive director. “Preserving the legacy of the 29 men who lost their lives in this historic maritime tragedy and helping to preserve a lighthouse that safeguards mariners along Lake Superior’s ‘Shipwreck Coast,’ are causes the swimmers can really rally around while they are themselves making history.”

The 729-foot Edmund Fitzgerald was bound for Detroit carrying over 26,000 long tons of iron ore when the ship went down in a violent Lake Superior storm on Nov. 10, 1975. All 29 crew members died in the wreck. The ship lies in Canadian waters, 17 miles north-northwest of Whitefish Point.

M Live

Potash Leads the Way as Marine Shipping in 2024 Maintains Consistency

As the 2024 marine shipping season on the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway progresses, statistics show that movements of potash (an agricultural fertilizer) remain up for 2024 when compared to the same period (i.e. March to June) last year. Specifically, potash traffic was up 281,000 tonnes, for a total of approximately 506,000 tonnes moved to date.

Key members of the Chamber of Marine Commerce (CMC) include Fertilizer Canada and several of its members. Fertilizer Canada represents producers, manufacturers, wholesale and retail distributors of nitrogen, phosphate, potash and sulphur fertilizers, which collectively play an essential role in Canada’s economy, contributing over $42 billion annually and employing 100,400 workers throughout the supply chain.

As the foundation of Canada’s agri-food sector, the association and its members are playing a key role in driving the economy and supporting food security.

“Canada is the world’s largest producer and exporter of potash, representing 38 per cent of global production. We export 95 per cent of our potash to over 75 countries,” says Karen Proud, President and CEO, Fertilizer Canada. “Farmers rely on Canadian fertilizer to grow healthy, hearty crops, and our industry relies on Canada’s supply chains to get our products to farmers worldwide. In recent years, Canada has increased potash production to offset the decreased output from Russia and Belarus due to sanctions and restrictions, and supply chain partners in the St. Lawrence Seaway play an important role in getting our products to international markets. Reliability in Canada’s supply chains is paramount to ensuring that farmers receive the fertilizers they need in a timely manner.”

“Looking at the volumes of vital materials moving across the continent, and all the benefits that result, we see how marine shipping and its partners move what matters to maintain a strong economy, job market, and quality of life,” noted Bruce Burrows, President and CEO of the Chamber of Marine Commerce.

“With respect to marine shipping specifically, almost 360,000 jobs and more than $66 Billion in economic activity are supported by our industry annually, and our members and partner associations make similar and substantial contributions. We are about to enter the busiest time of the marine shipping season, and CMC members across the supply chain are standing together to deliver for businesses and customers at home and all over the world – living up to our responsibility to deliver as consistently as ever, and expecting our partners in government and elsewhere to support us in doing so.”

Chamber of Marine Commerce

Victory Cruise Lines returning to the lakes in 2025 with Victory l and Victory ll

NEW ALBANY, IN – It’s a victory lap for cruise industry veteran John Waggoner, who’s bringing two ships back to Great Lakes itineraries in 2025 with ports including Toronto and Montreal.

Waggoner, who founded American Queen Voyages (AQV), bought Ocean Voyager and Ocean Navigator from auction in early 2024 after the ships were put up for sale in the wake of AQV’s bankruptcy proceedings. AQV had acquired Victory Cruise Lines in 2019.

AQV sold Ocean Navigator and Ocean Voyager in June 2023. And then everything came to a halt in February 2024 when Hornblower announced bankruptcy proceedings for AQV and the immediate end of its cruises.

The two vessels will revert back to their Victory Cruise Lines names Victory I and Victory II.

Victory Cruise Lines is focused on all-inclusive, small ship cruising. Reservations for the 2025 inaugural season are now open.

Comprised of the 190-guest Victory I and Victory II, these ships were purpose-built in Jacksonville, FL, to cruise on all five Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence Seaway, and the French-Canadian Maritimes.

The size and maneuverability of these ships are perfectly suited for coastal cruising in this region, says Waggoner. Cruising connoisseurs can celebrate the christening celebrations of Victory I in Toronto on April 27 and Victory II at Chicago’s Navy Pier on May 12.

“As long-time enthusiasts of maritime adventures, my wife Claudette and I are thrilled for the team to open reservations of the inaugural season and we prepare to sail these magnificent waters,” says Waggoner, Victory Cruise Lines Chairman and founder. “Our cruise experience will offer many special touches, including being the only cruise line to dock at Chicago’s Navy Pier, and most of all, our ships will be a home away from home exploring all five Great Lakes.”

Victory Cruise Lines will mark the inaugural season with a special New England & Canada 2025 Reunion Cruise Portland to Toronto departing April 16, 2025.

Hosted by the Waggoners, the 10-night cruise through the St. Lawrence Seaway and Canadian Maritimes will reunite friends from past voyages featuring notable guest entertainers, Phil Westbrook, and Greg and Lindy Pendzick.

Waggoner notes that Victory Cruise Lines is the only coastal cruising product on the Great Lakes that docks at Navy Pier in Chicago.

Victory Cruise Lines will offer 36 voyages on the Great Lakes in a single season, and the most coastal cruises in a single season that hit all 5 Great Lakes in one cruise, 33 voyages. Details at https://www.greatlakescruises.com/victory-cruise-lines.html.

Travelweek

Bill Shepler, co-founder of Shepler’s Mackinac Island Ferry, dies at 92

MACKINAW CITY, Mich., (WPBN/WGTU) — Bill Shepler, the co-founder of Shepler’s Mackinac Island Ferry, has died at the age of 92.

Bill’s son Chris Shepler, who is the company’s current president, said there’s been an outpouring of public support from friends and customers across the country.

Chirs said his father was still walking around and making his own breakfast three weeks before his passing.

“He never asked anyone to do something that he wasn’t willing to do right beside you,” Chris said. “So, if you were to take an overall picture of my father, I think that’s what stands out to me, other than being the most awesome dad.”

The entrance to Shepler’s Mackinac Island Ferry in Mackinaw City, Mich., is pictured in this July 19, 2024, photo. (UpNorthLive News)

“He’s probably wondering why the hell I’m not at work right now and why I wasn’t at work yesterday during his passing, but that would be my father. ‘Don’t worry about me, I’m fine, go do what you got to do,'” Chris said.

Chris said the family is still working on memorial plans.

A ‘time capsule’ shipwreck off Algoma in Lake Michigan is named a national historic place

The Trinidad, which sank in 1881, is considered important because it’s one of the very few wrecks in Wisconsin waters that’s remained intact
Christopher Clough

Green Bay Press-Gazette

ALGOMA – One of the most intact, and therefore most important, shipwrecks in Wisconsin waters now has joined the National Register of Historic Places.

The wreck of the 157-year-old, 140-foot-long cargo schooner Trinidad was named to the national register July 3, the Wisconsin Historical Society announced this week, after the historical society added her to the Wisconsin Register of Historic Places on Feb. 23. Her remains lie about 9.5 miles off the Algoma shore, partially embedded about 270 feet below the surface of Lake Michigan.

The Trinidad isn’t the oldest or biggest shipwreck in the Great Lakes, but Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association president Brendon Baillod, who with fellow underwater archeologist Robert Jaeck found and identified the ship in July of 2023 after a two-year search, said it’s a very important wreck because it’s so intact after 143 years underwater, unlike most other wrecks that break up during or after sinking.

As well as the hull remaining intact, among the artifacts still on the wreck are the crew’s possessions, the dishes and other artifacts in the deck house, the bow, stern and stern deck, anchors, wheel, bell, other deck machinery and the rigging, which used wire instead of rope and thus survive instead of rotting away.

“It’s one of the most intact shipwrecks ever found in Wisconsin waters,” Baillod said in a September interview with the Advocate about discovering the Trinidad. “It’s a very significant find. … It’s like a time capsule.”

The Trinidad was built at Grand Island, New York, in 1867. It represented a class of vessels called “canal schooners” or “canallers” that was unique to the Great Lakes because they were designed to transit the locks of the Welland Canal in Ontario, bypassing Niagara Falls while carrying the maximum amount of cargo through the locks with only inches to spare.

Like other canallers, she would carry coal from eastern ports – Oswego, New York, in her case – to Milwaukee and Chicago, then return to New York with grain, a lucrative commodity at the time. But in an article for the Shipwreck World website about the discovery of the wreck, Baillod wrote that the Trinidad’s owners apparently didn’t spend much to maintain the ship, and by 1879, she was no longer fit to haul grain.
The Trinidad was bringing coal from Port Huron, Michigan, to Milwaukee when on May 10, 1881, she began leaking more than usual after passing Sturgeon Bay and sank early in the morning of May 11, so quickly that the crew had no time to gather possessions. Capt. John Higgins and the entire eight-man crew survived after an eight-hour row through Lake Michigan waves in a small yawl to the Ahnapee (now Algoma) shore, but a Newfoundland that served as the ship’s mascot was unable to escape.

According to Baillod on both the Shipwreck World and Wisconsin Shipwrecks websites, Higgins told reporters the ship might have sunk because of ice damage, but Baillod wrote, “The insurance records indicate that Trinidad did not receive any of the regular maintenance that a wooden ship requires and the vessel was essentially sailed into the bottom of the lake.”

Baillod and Jaeck didn’t immediately publicize their finding of the Trinidad but instead reported it to the Wisconsin Historical Society’s Maritime Archeology program so it could be documented and positively identified before shipwreck hunters and divers could disturb the location. After confirming the identity, they announced the discovery in September 2023 but didn’t disclose the exact location until the wreck was named to the state historic register to make sure it was protected.

State and federal laws protect this shipwreck. Divers may not remove artifacts or structure when visiting this site. Removing, defacing, displacing or destroying artifacts or sites is a crime.

The Trinidad is now the fifth vessel in the waters off either Door or Kewaunee counties named since 2023 to both the state and national registers of historic places.

The Emeline and Peoria, off the Baileys Harbor shore, and the lumber schooners Boaz and Sunshine, both in North Bay off Lake Michigan, joined the state register in 2023 and subsequently the national register within a few months. The wreck of the Pride, a 71-foot-long, two-masted schooner that was caught in a tornado and sank off Egg Harbor in 1898 before being towed to its final rest in Sturgeon Bay, was listed with the state register May 24.

For more information on the Trinidad, visit  wisconsinhistory.org  or  https://wisconsinshipwrecks.org/

Navigating a Greener Future: Algoma Central Corporation is Successful in Five Grant Funding Applications from Transport Canada’s Green Shipping Corridor Program (GSCP)

July 16, 2024

As Canada increasingly focuses on sustainable practices, the maritime sector continues to be a pivotal player in reducing carbon emissions. While marine transportation is already the most eco-friendly mode of moving goods, innovative technologies emerge as possibilities for greater improvements. Algoma is actively exploring these advancements to identify their long-term viability and feasibility for a greener future on the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence Seaway.

The Green Shipping Corridor Program (GSCP) is an integral partner in this movement, offering critical funding to projects that will drive the establishment of a green shipping corridor and the decarbonization of marine activities along the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence Seaway, and Canada’s East and West Coasts.

What does the program aim to achieve?

One of the primary objectives of the GSCP is to eliminate the obstacles that hinder the adoption of emission-reducing equipment and infrastructure. The program addresses these barriers by providing financial support for projects that:

Build capacity among Canadian vessel owner/operators with respect to their ability to identify, plan and implement next generation low carbon and zero-emission ship technology and marine fuels into their vessel operations

Remove barriers to the adoption of emission reducing equipment and infrastructure

Incentivize industry-led partnerships and investments to accelerate the adoption of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission-reduction technologies and infrastructure

De-risk investments to increase the technology-readiness level of low carbon and zero-emission ship technology and marine fuels for the domestic vessel fleet

Visit: https://tc.canada.ca/en/programs/green-shipping-corridor-program to learn more about the program.

GSCP Grant Funding – De-Risking Investments in Low Carbon Technologies

Investing in low carbon and zero-emission ship technologies can be a high-stakes venture due to the significant capital required, the multi-generational assets, the unique nature of our ships and waterways, and the nascent stage of many new technologies. At Algoma, we believe research must come first. This is not to stall innovation but to ensure we get it right. Short sea shipping on the Great Lakes is unique which means the sector will require tailored solutions. The GSCP is helping Algoma research potential solutions by providing grant funding under the Clean Vessel Demonstration Stream for the following studies:

Biofuel Feasibility Study

Wind Assisted Propulsion System Feasibility Study

Shore Power Feasibility Study

Next Generation Bulk Carrier Design

Container shipping study – Articulated Tug-Barge unit

We would like to thank Transport Canada and the Honourable Pablo Rodriguez, Minister of Transport of Canada for implementing this program and providing support to the Canadian marine sector. Thank you also to Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, Vance Badawey for announcing the successful grant recipients on behalf of Transport Canada and the Minister’s office and MP Chris Bittle of St. Catharines for your continued support.

As an industry, we need to find the right solutions, set a course, and see it through, together. The collective adoption of carbon reducing technologies will ensure adequate supply, cost competitiveness, and will strengthen the overall benefits of the sector.  With the support of the GSCP, the marine industry has been provided with an opportunity to drive the right innovation and implement successful and long-term advancements.

To learn more about Algoma’s environmental initiatives, progress, challenges, and the studies listed above, read our latest Sustainability Report here.    https://www.algonet.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/2023-Sustainability-Report_Algoma_web-1.pdf