by Guest » May 27, 2023, 2:27 pm
(Moderator note: this post is from William Lafferty) Disposal of tonnage controlled by the United States Maritime Commission did not occur until after the passage of the Ship Sales Act by Congress in 1946. Leathem D. Smith in the summer of 1944 proposed adapting future surplus Maritime Commission C1-M-AV1 Diesel freighters (of which his Sturgeon Bay yard built fourteen) into a new generation of package freighter to resuscitate that trade on the lakes, but using a new concept, all cargo contained in containers that could be easily transferred among ship, rail, and truck and prevent pilferage. Below is a drawing of his proposed vessel, which, clearly and amazingly, anticipated modern container ship practice by a quarter century. Note the shipboard container crane. Smith's death in 1946 halted progress on that but not before his yard produced standard containers that were eventually used by AGWI Lines after the war in its East Coast-Puerto Rico service (primarily to stop the theft of Puerto Rican rum on the docks). Smith's containerization plan is a whole other, and depressing, story. The C1-M-A1 proved a very efficient and popular vessel after the war, with good capacity but a small enough size and economy of operation to make it ideal for harbors large and small. The only one adapted for lakes use was, of course, what would become the Paul H. Townsend. The Cliffs Victory was very much an outlier as a lake conversion, adapted from a standard VC2-S-AP3 design and retaining in general the placement of its original power plant, explaining its unusual silhouette. The sudden advent of American participation in the Korean Conflict in August 1950 hastened the sale of the Notre Dame Victory to Cliffs for conversion and quickly other surplus USMC hulls. However, the remaining conversions were of vessels far more conducive for lake service, all with engines aft. The Republic trio were C4-S-A4 cargo ships with turbine drive for speed, those turbines aft, and the vessels' pilothouses far forward (though not at the bow). The McKee Sons and Joseph H. Thompson were C4-S-B1 design, dedicated tank carriers but with the same configuration. By the mid-1950s the highly successful T-2 and T-3 tankers of World War II that had found eager buyers worldwide after the war were becoming redundant as a new breed of modern oil carrier began being built worldwide here, in Asia, and Europe. The Joseph S. Young was the first T2-SE-A1 conversion in 1956 and would be followed by the T2-SE-A1 Hanna conversions and the T3-S-A1 conversions of the Walter A. Sterling and Pioneer Challenger. I think I've discussed the controversy over the foreign-built mid-bodies of those here in the past. The Aquarama began life as a C4-S-B5, a combination freight and troop carrier. The J. A. W. Iglehart was not a Maritime Commission design, built in 1936, although operated by the USMC from 26 April 1942 to 21 December 1945.
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(Moderator note: this post is from William Lafferty) Disposal of tonnage controlled by the United States Maritime Commission did not occur until after the passage of the Ship Sales Act by Congress in 1946. Leathem D. Smith in the summer of 1944 proposed adapting future surplus Maritime Commission C1-M-AV1 Diesel freighters (of which his Sturgeon Bay yard built fourteen) into a new generation of package freighter to resuscitate that trade on the lakes, but using a new concept, all cargo contained in containers that could be easily transferred among ship, rail, and truck and prevent pilferage. Below is a drawing of his proposed vessel, which, clearly and amazingly, anticipated modern container ship practice by a quarter century. Note the shipboard container crane. Smith's death in 1946 halted progress on that but not before his yard produced standard containers that were eventually used by AGWI Lines after the war in its East Coast-Puerto Rico service (primarily to stop the theft of Puerto Rican rum on the docks). Smith's containerization plan is a whole other, and depressing, story. The C1-M-A1 proved a very efficient and popular vessel after the war, with good capacity but a small enough size and economy of operation to make it ideal for harbors large and small. The only one adapted for lakes use was, of course, what would become the [I]Paul H. Townsend[/I]. The [I]Cliffs Victory[/I] was very much an outlier as a lake conversion, adapted from a standard VC2-S-AP3 design and retaining in general the placement of its original power plant, explaining its unusual silhouette. The sudden advent of American participation in the Korean Conflict in August 1950 hastened the sale of the [I]Notre Dame Victory[/I] to Cliffs for conversion and quickly other surplus USMC hulls. However, the remaining conversions were of vessels far more conducive for lake service, all with engines aft. The Republic trio were C4-S-A4 cargo ships with turbine drive for speed, those turbines aft, and the vessels' pilothouses far forward (though not at the bow). The [I]McKee Sons[/I] and [I]Joseph H. Thompson[/I] were C4-S-B1 design, dedicated tank carriers but with the same configuration. By the mid-1950s the highly successful T-2 and T-3 tankers of World War II that had found eager buyers worldwide after the war were becoming redundant as a new breed of modern oil carrier began being built worldwide here, in Asia, and Europe. The [I]Joseph S. Young[/I] was the first T2-SE-A1 conversion in 1956 and would be followed by the T2-SE-A1 Hanna conversions and the T3-S-A1 conversions of the [I]Walter A. Sterling[/I] and [I]Pioneer Challenger[/I]. I think I've discussed the controversy over the foreign-built mid-bodies of those here in the past. The [I]Aquarama[/I] began life as a C4-S-B5, a combination freight and troop carrier. The [I]J. A. W. Iglehart[/I] was not a Maritime Commission design, built in 1936, although operated by the USMC from 26 April 1942 to 21 December 1945.