by Guest » December 29, 2020, 10:37 am
If I'm not mistaken, Detroit Edison at one time had at least part ownership of the both the Belle River and St. Clair and that was one of the reasons both ships had the blue paint on their boom supports. During the late 1980s, I heard that DTE paid the operating costs for the Belle River and would assume that a similar arrangement existed for the St. Clair. I'm not sure, but I'm assuming that somewhere along the way the ownership arrangement was changed. Of course, this could all have been some type of charter arrangement as well. There is often confusion between a ship's legal ownership and its operator as several references will actually list an operator as an owner. I do recall that a Detroit Edison payment office in Marine City, Michigan, during the early 1980s had a large aerial photograph of the Belle River on the St. Clair River.
If I'm not mistaken, Detroit Edison at one time had at least part ownership of the both the Belle River and St. Clair and that was one of the reasons both ships had the blue paint on their boom supports. During the late 1980s, I heard that DTE paid the operating costs for the Belle River and would assume that a similar arrangement existed for the St. Clair. I'm not sure, but I'm assuming that somewhere along the way the ownership arrangement was changed. Of course, this could all have been some type of charter arrangement as well. There is often confusion between a ship's legal ownership and its operator as several references will actually list an operator as an owner. I do recall that a Detroit Edison payment office in Marine City, Michigan, during the early 1980s had a large aerial photograph of the Belle River on the St. Clair River.