John G. Munson
After State of Michigan passed, I waited about an hour for my last boat of Memorial Day.
And really, who wouldn’t wait an hour for this?
The steamer John G. Munson is snaking her way downbound below the Ambassador Bridge. I am watching from River Rouge’s Belanger Park.
She is a 768 foot long self-unloading steamer, and she is loaded with limestone from Calcite, Michigan.
Her destination is Carmeuse Lime… in River Rouge. Here we go, folks.
She is turning ninety degrees to enter the Rouge River.
She works as a combination ore-and-stone boat. Obviously this is an instance where she is carrying stone.
Here is a closeup of her 1952 bow. She is one of three surviving freighters built entirely at Manitowoc Shipbuilding. The others are, chronologically, Saginaw and Edward L. Ryerson.
The mighty Munson is moving into the Rouge’s mouth, so it is time for me to find my next vantage point.
And by that I mean go to the Jefferson Avenue drawbridge. Munson is being swarmed by gulls as she slows down for Carmeuse.
Here is a different view.
I also couldn’t resist trying this shot.
And here she is after throwing her lines ashore. She was still slowly moving forward, but she’s pretty much docked (they don’t have an actual “dock” to put her at). And so I left at this point
I almost forgot… this is cool because Munson was the first boat in my first post! Oh how this blog has changed (I eventually dumped that gallery format).
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Memorial Day Traffic
I spent my Memorial Day taking pictures of boats. I saw some other boatwatchers for once, so I know that I wasn’t alone in this venture. I arrived at Belle Isle at about 10:00.
Endeavour is rolling past the Coast Guard Station.
She is a 360′ long tank barge run by Andrie Incorporated. She is currently running light barge to Indiana Harbor. She was built in 2009, making her one of the newest on the Lakes.
The articulated tug Karen Andrie pushes Endeavour wherever she needs to go. They have a contract to haul liquid for BP.
That was my entire Belle Isle traffic for the day. I went all the way down to Belanger Park in River Rouge.
As soon as I arrived, A-397 (fleetmate of Endeavour) pulled out of the Rouge. She loaded at Marathon and is headed for Tonawanda, New York.
Rebecca Lynn is doing the pushing here.
They head on downbound.
After that Andrie-filled start, I was excited to see this classic ship sailing downbound.
Manistee was launched in 1943. She is one of the oldest operating freighters on these Lakes.
She has the classic counter stern that can be seen on most pre-war freighters.
During the gap in traffic I get a shot of the salty Federal Hudson still at Nicholson’s from yesterday.
My next ship is another downbounder… CSL Assiniboine the mighty.
She measures in at 739’11″, making her one inch shorter than Algoma’s longest boats (740’00″). CSL can only try.
Most of her was built in 2005. The part of the stern with the superstructure on it is from the ’70s. She was the Jean Parisien and her old forebody was replaced by her current one in 2005. She also had her old name replaced by the current one. Now she is CSL Assiniboine. She was the fourth CSL ship to undergo this treatment, with the others being CSL Niagara, Rt. Hon. Paul J. Martin and CSL Laurentien.
My next downbounder has an odd look to her…
She is the self-unloading stone barge Cleveland Rocks, headed downbound for Cleveland.
Articulated tug Bradshaw McKee provides the power. This is the first year of Rocks working as an ATB combo. The new notch was added over the winter in Erie. Before that, her tug was Cleveland, which burned heading off lakes in Spring (she’s okay, though).
Unfortunately, I cannot provide a length for Cleveland Rocks as it appears that she gained a few feet when the new notch was put in. I’m not sure what the new dimensions are.
Here comes my last boat for this post.
The training vessel State of Michigan is one of the most handsome ships on the Great Lakes.
For more on her see this post.
Here is her stack and old glory (it was, after all, Memorial Day!).
She is currently doing her spring river cruises. Once she arrived in Lake Erie, she turned around and went back up to Port Huron.
She is one of a select few boats with that as their port of regsitry. Notice the “do not anchor” sign.
I will save the last boat from Memorial Day for my next post.
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One in the Afternoon
From 8:00 to 11:30 Sunday morning, I saw a combined ten freighters/barges, tying my personal record for a single day in Detroit. This led to the title Ten in the Morning. But I was going for the win: eleven. But according to AIS I would have to wait awhile. So I hung out on Belle Isle’s east end, passing the time by taking pictures.
When I walked out to the tip of the island I saw this boats at a marina on the Detroit mainland. It is the Clinton River cruise boat Captain Paul II.
The Windsor tour boat Macassa Bay passed upbound.
She turned around to come back down (note the smoke in the background).
Macassa Bay hugged the Belle Isle coast on her way back down.
This lovely yacht sailed past me headed for Lake St. Clair.
Finally, my boat arrived. It’s the Purvis Marine tank barge PML 2501 carrying coal tar to Hamilton.
She is loaded very deep, and was moving very slowly. She passed at about 3:30, four hours after the freighter before.
Here is a closeup of her bow.
And the tug making the smoke is Wilfred M. Cohen. She was built in 1948 and is one of the barge-pushers in PML’s fleet.
That wraps up my pictures from May 27th. Eleven ships on the Detroit River, seen from three different spots. All very worthwhile if you ask me.
Tomorrow you will see pictures from May 28th!
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tugboathunter
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Generic License.
