Boatnerd Discussion Forum

From the Canadian-side, "River Class" ships came to be in the length range of 640-650 feet, and to accomplish that, one cargo hold was deleted from the design of a full Seaway-size laker (730 foot, at the time). For example, Tarantau (CSL) was full Seaway size, however, Roy A. Jodrey, was "River Class" at 640 feet. Similarly, while Algobay was a full Seaway-size laker (at that time) at 730 feet, Algoport was designed to navigate in/out of Gulf St. Lawrence ports and required shorter length. To accomplish this, Algoma/Collingwood deleted one cargo hold, shortening the ship 72 feet, down to 658 feet.

The Cuyahoga river had numerous channel improvements throughout the 20th century as ships became larger, and industry required larger deliveries of raw materials. But it was a gradual process. Despite the several 'bank widening' projects the US Army Corps of Engineers has done, ships are still limited by size. I believe the largest has been the Herbert J. Jackson and a couple of the ATB self-unloader tug-barge combos.

There was talk around 1975-78 of having a conveyor system that would run from the lakefront of Cleveland up one of the city streets to the upriver steel mills. That eventually evolved into an idea of cutting down the "Red Tomatoes" (i.e. the three C4 straight-deckers) into barges that Cleveland Cliffs was operating for Republic Steel, and have them towed to the upriver steel mills from the lakefront ore dock.

By 1978, it evolved again into having a purpose-built self-unloader for the Cuyahoga river service, which became the American Republic, now Great Republic.

How did the 639 foot length for the so-called River Class vessel come about? When the Pittsburgh Fleet (USS) built the AAA class in the early 1940s at a length of 639 feet they were considered quite large and were unable to transit some of the more confined waterways such as the Cuyahoga River at Cleveland at that time. This class had been preceded in 1927 by the Carl D. Bradley which also shared that length. I'm assuming that some harbor improvements opened up many of the confining river systems at some port such as Cleveland that allowed the 639 foot length to become standard for ships operating in these trade routes. When devising these improvements, did the Corps of Engineers base their plans directly off of these 639 foot vessels?