Boatnerd Discussion Forum

The steel mill (Plant 3) that was built as a Defense Plant in WWII had two blast furnaces "A" and "B" is the one that had several bridge draws that required a narrow-beamed ship such as the Clarence B. Randall, E.J. Block, Misener's Royalton and a couple other Canadian straight-deckers to deliver ore to that mill. I believe later on when the E.J. Block had been retired a tug and barge was transferring ore from the other docks to plant number three for a time.

The Herbert C. Jackson, built at 690 feet, was never lengthened either. Also worth noting that the Sparrows Point, Johnstown, and Elton Hoyt 2nd, although they were lengthened, were only brought to 698 feet, which is around the same size as the Jackson, Sykes, and Weir/Burton.

The Wilfred Sykes and Ernest T. Weir (later Courtney Burton then American Fortitude) were both converted into self-unloaders but never lengthened. I don't believe many other US ships built in the 15 years after the end of World War II (1945-1960) that were built at less than 700 feet in length survived the mass scrapping that took place in the US fleet during the 1980s. The only vessels I can think of that made it through the 1980s that had not been lengthened other that than Sykes and Burton were the John J. Boland and J. L. Mauthe with the latter two remaining in their original configurations whereas the Sykes and Burton had been converted into self-unloaders. Was there any reason the Sykes and Burton were never lengthened as they both were heavily engaged in the ore trade at the time and the Sykes, in particular, would have benefited by being able to carry more cargo per trip into Indiana Harbor. Did the construction of these two ships prevent their lengthening? Or was such a modification not considered due to some size limitation to the trading patterns these two ships were intended to operate? I know that after being converted into a self-unloader, the Sykes became involved in delivering stone and coal to many Lake Michigan ports and I believe this increased significantly following the entry into service the Indiana Harbor for ASC that was built primarily to serve Inland Steel's needs. I believe the size constrained docks in use at Indiana Harbor at the time required ships much smaller than the Sykes and this is what kept the E. J. Block operating into the 1980s.