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No alarm clock anywhere could wake people up like a bow thruster equipped with an air starter. Always a welcome sound when you were arriving in Home Port, off watch.

the C. L. Austin has her bow thruster installed at Fraser over the winter of 1963-64 at a cost of $100k. I think the Ben Moreell had hers installed the same year. Austin and her sister Denton were ideal thruster candidates because they went up the Cuyahoga nearly every trip. Diesel powered, with nothing to supress the noise, they would wake the dead- noone on the forward end could sleep when the thruster was running. The triple in the after end made plenty of noise too- but it was a fairly steady hum, without the thruster's awful sound bursts.

The William G. Mather had her bowthruster installed in 1964 at the same time she had the Bailey Boiler Control installed.

The 1st Bow-Thruster on the Lakes was that installed in the 1950-built, 287.9ft by 43.6 ft. Barge [i]Carport[/i]. As noted on page 145 of [u]Great Lakes Ships We Remember III[/u]:

"The most unique feature of the barge was a 48 inch propellor mounted athwartships in a tunnel in the bow that was probably the first bow-thruster employed on the Great Lakes."

My mistake the Denton was the first straight decker. The Sensibar was 1961. For more information go to the Info Search for Oct 25, 2010. There is the same discussion with dates of the early installations.

The Sensibar was the first self-unloader to have a bow thruster. The first Great Lakes Freighter was the Frank R. Denton in 1963.

I'm going exclusively by memory, but I believe the [i]J. R. Sensibar[/i] received the first bow thruster, a KaMeWa, when she was repowered and rebuilt during the winter of 1959-1960 at Christy Corp. at Sturgeon Bay. As I recall, she began a relatively dedicated run between Rail-to-Water Transfer and the Oak Creek Power Plant that season to supply that plant's existing and newly-built generating units, and O-N believed the bow thruster would eliminate the need for tugs on the Calumet River and improve landing at Oak Creek's lakefront dock. By the next year, the addition of bow thrusters, particularly self-unloaders, would become commonplace during winter lay-up for many lakers.

My guess is mid-60's

All the Amereican Lake boats had bow thrusters added after launching except the the Footers and the river class.

When did bow thrusters become "standard" equipment?

Dan