Boatnerd Discussion Forum

Speaking of Great Lakes vessels, the U.S. Maritime Commission had sixteen Great Lakes ore carriers built in 1943 to handle the extra tonnage of iron ore needed for the war effort - sort of a Great Lakes version of the Liberty Ship concept. Ten of them, class L6-S-B1, had
2500-horsepower triple expansion engines similar to the Liberty Ship engines. The other six, class L6-S-A1 had four-cylinder double-compound engines with Lentz-Poppet valve gear.

[quote="JERRY AT DULUTH" post_id=252931 time=1682464863]
The AAA boats copied the SYKES but not exactly but in style. The whole issue is correct but a bit anal.
JERRY
[/quote]

I don't know why the reference to the AAA boats came into the discussion about the AA class and Maritimers other the AA/AAA comment in one of the posts but that was clearly not the point of the thread. I also don't understand your apparent opinion of this ussue as some of the information in the original thread was clearly incorrect. The point is that once something incorrect is published either in physical form or online this same misinformation has a tendency to crop up in other works especially in cases when authors of these works don't verify information found in second source material. The clarification was not made to offend anyone but just to ensure that any individual(s) researching these ships (that is how I came across this thread) don't misinterpet the AA class as being a modified version of the Maritime class when that is not the case.

Since the Governor Class came just a few years before these Supers and Maritimers, and they had turbines, I always thought they had some influence on the newer ones designs. I don't know if that is correct. They were smaller...

[quote="JERRY AT DULUTH" post_id=252931 time=1682464863]
The AAA boats copied the SYKES but not exactly but in style. The whole issue is correct but a bit anal.
JERRY
[/quote]

The original plans for the AAA class were laid out long before the Sykes was even a thought. The design of the Sykes was actually based off the original AAA class design from 1947, though the AAA ships were not ordered until 1950 because U.S. Steel put the project on hold due to demand forecasting.

The AAA boats copied the SYKES but not exactly but in style. The whole issue is correct but a bit anal.
JERRY

[quote=Andrew post_id=241759 time=1633106550]
The Super, or AA class, were called such because the Supers were basically "Super Maritimers," with a slightly larger size and engine.
[/quote]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but I came across this today and thought that this subject required some clarification as many younger visitors may not be as well acquainted with the Super and Maritime classes of steamers built during the 1940s as we older visitors are. The Supers were not "Super Maritimers" as the turbine powered Super class was designed separately and prior to the development of the Maritime class (L6 Great Lakes Ore Carriers). The Supers were designed for US Steel's Pittsburgh Steamship Division while the Maritimers, as the name implies, were designed for the US Maritime Commission as part of an emergency program to increase the iron ore carrying capability of the US fleet during World War II. As both classes were built within the same timeframe (the Maritimers directly following the Supers) during the early 1940s they did share some similar characteristics with some elements carried over the respective designs of the Maritimers (both the Great Lakes Engineering Works B1 and the American Ship Building Company A1 subtypes) were separate from that of the Super class. Significantly, the two classes differed in both size and propulsion plants with the American Ship Building variant of the Maritime class differing even further with cruiser sterns and Lentz powerplants. As the Supers and Maritimers appear generally similar, particularly the rounded Texas cabins of the American Ship Building Maritimers that were in common with that of the Supers, this has created some confusion over the years. I have seen examples of the steamer Alpena (a Super class) being wrongly referred to as a Maritimer in blogs, etc. online. In the present, this has been likely influenced by the fact that there were three Maritimers still in operation up to just a few years ago with the Cuyahoga and the long idle CTC No. 1 being the last remaining examples. This is in contrast to all of the Supers being sold for scrap during the 1980s with the exception of the Leon Fraser which was converted in the cement carrier Alpena and remains operational today. I seem to recall the AA designation for the Super class was an accounting term within the Pittsburgh fleet. I may be mistaken, but I believe the term Super for that class of steamers came from the fact that although they were not that much larger than the largest ships on the lakes when they entered service, their slight dimensional increase combined with the speed provided by powerful steam turbines enabled them to carry nearly a third more tonnage per season than the other largest carriers.

Pretty much all the classes are nicknames for code name classes. Maritimers were called such because they were built for the American Maritime Commission. The AAA class were called such because of the officer status, but were technically called the "Pittsburgh Class" since the design was made for the Pittsburgh Steamship Company, but adapted by various fleets. The Super, or AA class, were called such because the Supers were basically "Super Maritimers," with a slightly larger size and engine.

AA/AAA only stood for pay grade of Senior officers not class of boat.

Maritimer.

I see the SS Robert C Stanley mentioned in today's Boatnerd History. Was the Stanley a AA and in the same class as the Leon Fraser, or was it a Maritimer? It first sailed in '43 so I think it is either one or the other. TIA