Boatnerd Discussion Forum

Thats kinda interesting because everytime I saw her she unloaded her cargo turned at the sixth street tjrning basin and was always outbouf empty. Do you have and pics if of her loading at the sarget dock ?

The Undaunted/PM41 loads gypsum at the Sargent dock below the Zilwaukee bridge every year.

I grew up on the saginaw river and never saw a boat load any type of cargo. They always unloaded. There would lighter in bay city then continue upriver to the docks in saginaw. The river is very shallow. Until recently they started dredge the river. Recenrlty the mantitwoc came into baycity loaded at 24 feet. Thats just my opinion
Daniel McNeil

The pair definitely loaded in Zilwaukee. I have a photo of them outbound with the load posted at:

I suspect what you saw loaded at the Sargent Dock near Zilwaukee was actually natural gypsum. There are still three active gypsum mines in Michigan. Michigan Gypsum is located southeast of Whittemore and is owned by the Sargent family, which also owns the docks. They ship an occasional barge load of gypsum out as well as shipping gypsum by rail (to LaFarge in Alpena) and truck.

US Gypsum at Alabaster is still mining gypsum but ships exclusively by truck since their dock collapsed years ago. I've heard they may supply some of the gypsum that is barged out of Zilwaukee but I can't confirm that.

I believe most of National Gypsum's output from their mine near National City goes directly to their National City wallboard plant. But they seem to sill load a few ships each year at their Port Gypsum dock. Someone mentioned recently that the tug Manitou was placing private buoys in the channel, so they are probably getting ready to use the dock.

I believe the Oak Creek power plant in Wisconsin is set up to ship synthetic gypsum (a byproduct of burning coal) by boat, but I'm pretty certain the Pere Marquette's recent load came from Michigan.

From the Port of Green Bay's website, they were due on July 30 at about Noon to unload gypsum from Oak Creek, WI. I don't know if this is true or an error but, that's what they have listed on site.

After reading the news page I saw the pm 41 unloaded at wirt stone in saginaw then loaded sand at the sarget dock in zillwakee. Any idea where she was takeing the sand cargo as it is very rare nowdays for a vessle to load a cargo in the saginaw river. Thanks Daniel