Wilf Seymour-Alouette Spirit

[Guest]

How corrosive is brine to ship's internal structure?

[St Crapo]

Thank you so much Mr. Link for such a detailed explanation of what brine is and it's uses are.i greatly appreciate it and learned something new. I've been a boatwatcher and doing this hobby for 22 years now and never knew exactly what it was. It's nice that after doing this for so long I can still learn new things daily from this wonderful site. Have a great 4th of July holiday and thanks so much again for all the information.
Dan McNeil

[Mr Link]

Brine is simply a solution of any salt and water. The salts are typically Calcium Chloride, Sodium Chloride or Magnesium Chloride. Each has slightly different properties, such as unit weight and freezing temperature, which also depends on the concentration.

Brines have numerous uses in industry, food prep, agriculture and construction. Some of the common non-food grade uses include dust suppression on gravel roads, de-icing roads, treating roads before a storm as an anti-icing agent, a liquid antifreeze material for things like tractor tire weight, gravel stabilization, and as an accelerator to make concrete set faster (although this generally reduces the life of the concrete.)

Brine is a naturally occurring material that is generally produced by pumping water into the ground and extracting the brine (ie solution mining.) Two big loading ports on the Great Lakes are Ludington MI and Courtright Ontario. Sarnia may load brine as well. Manistee MI used to load brine as well but there is now a plastic pipeline that carries brine from producing wells in the Manistee area to Ludington.

Common receiving ports are Superior, WI, Goderich ONT, Lemont IL, Bath ONT, Three Rivers, Que, Bay City MI, and Cleveland, OH for brine out of Ludington. Brine from Courtright often goes to Thunder Bay, Little Current, Cornwall and Oshawa in Ontario. It may also go further down the St. Lawrence.

On the US side, the tug Spartan and barge Spartan II are pretty much dedicated to hauling calcium chloride brine out of Ludington, as are the barge Robert F. Deegan and the tug Zeus. On the Canadian side, many of the McKeil barges are equipped to haul brine. Although I didn't realize that the Alouette Spirit was still in that trade.

[St Crapo]

Sorry if this is a stupid question but what is brine and what is it used for? What ports is it loaded and unloaded at? Thanks so much for any information.
Dan McNeil

[Guest]

AIS shows the Wilf Seymour (and presumably the Alouette Spirit) at the brine dock in Courtright, Ont. My guess is that they are looking for alternate cargoes now that there are tariffs on Canadian aluminum. I believe they have hauled brine in the past in the "ballast" tanks.

This is nothing unusual.

[cpfan]

Wilf Seymour-Alouette Spirit carry aluminum upbound and various loads downbound. AT least twice this season they have been upbound from Detroit; however, I did not record where they went and what they did afterwards. It may be a little early to comment on the impacts of the tariffs.

Steve

[tugboathunter]

Sharon M I/Huron Spirit literally left the same dock just hours before with a load for Little Current. They do not carry aluminum so there could just be a demand for the brine loads right now. McKeil does them semi-regularly every year.

[Mr Link]

AIS shows the Wilf Seymour (and presumably the Alouette Spirit) at the brine dock in Courtright, Ont. My guess is that they are looking for alternate cargoes now that there are tariffs on Canadian aluminum. I believe they have hauled brine in the past in the "ballast" tanks.