Proposal for SS Spartan

[Shawn]

I think it has been adequately put forth that the proposal is either a high school project or the ramblings of someone with a pipe dream. It has also been demonstrated that the condition of the Spartan's decks is such that the probability of her ever running again as a powered ferry is about nil (never mind the condition of her equipment).

Whether or not there is anything to the proposal I am still learning a lot from the discussion here and am glad to see it continue. It is sometimes from discussions such as these that ideas are put forth that nobody has brought up before which end up being beneficial to the item or cause being considered.

[Rob]

No offense guys, but if they canr figure out a porpulsion system for the badger this spartan nonense is not even worh discussing anymore.

[Randy S]

It takes about 1.68 gallons of LNG to equal the same BTU as one gallon of heavy oil. LNG weighs 3.5 pounds per gallon, but requires high pressure, heavily insulated storage. It is also odorless and colorless, so a leak might not be detected until it is too late. The company I work for now has 48 hybird LNG/Diesel tractors. These engines are supplied by Westport - http://www.westport-hd.com/ These rigs have 3 on-board leak detectors - one under the hood, one in the cab and one behind the cab.

[Chuck]

While the adoption of LNG as a marine fuel source is not currently widespread, there is a lot of industry interest on the topic.

Before tangenting off to other areas of the country / world, I'll mention a paper / study completed by Dr. Michael Parsons for the Great Lakes Maritime Research Institute titled "The Potential Conversion of the U.S. Great Lakes Steam Bulk Carriers to LNG Propulsion – Initial Report"; the paper is available at the following link:

http://www.glmri.org/downloads/focusAre ... 2-2012.pdf

The GLMRI Research section of the website also contains many more papers on the topic of natural gas-repowering at the link below:

http://www.glmri.org/research/

Moving away from the Great Lakes, the Washington State Ferries system, for example, is considering LNG conversions for part of its existing fleet. As part of that dialogue, the Washington State Department of Transportation provided the following global summary of LNG usage in passenger ferries:

Worldwide examples
The use of LNG as a marine fuel for passenger ferries is not unprecedented.

Since 2000 the Norwegian government has allowed the construction and operation of LNG passenger vessels. There are currently more than 15 car and passenger ferries operating in Norway that are fueled by LNG.

Both BC Ferries and Staten Island Ferries are studying options to retrofit their vessels from diesel to LNG fuel. View a recent presentation on LNG given by BC Ferries.

The Quebec Ferries Company has contracted for three new LNG ferries.

There are LNG passenger vessels currently under construction or in design for service in Argentina, Uruguay, Finland, and Sweden.

The newest / largest LNG powered ferry in Norway (MF Boknafjord) is 426 ft long x 63 ft beam and is capable of carrying 242 cars and 600 passengers / crew.

In 2013, the passenger / car ferry M/S Viking Grace will be launched for service between Finland and Sweden. She will be 715 ft long x 104 ft beam with the capability to carry almost 3,000 passengers / crew. Slide 10 of the presentation available at the link below provides a high level layout of her power plant:

http://www.interferry.com/2012papers/5- ... Enlund.pdf

The BC Ferries presentation referenced by WSDOT above also provides a high level layout of the proposed power plant on slide 15 of the presentation available at the link below:

http://www.cngva.org/media/25659/bc_fer ... e_2012.pdf

A detailed Washington State Ferries / WSDOT study is also available at the following link:

http://www.leg.wa.gov/JTC/Documents/Stu ... an2012.pdf

[TWilush]

It's a high school project that seems to have gone viral. It's not real.

[Rob]

As a museum type person, I would love to see a steam carferry preserved, but it is very difficult to provide the funds for these kinds of preservations. Preserving any kind of ship is a very expensive process and continues to be expensive every year after preservation. The operating Badger is a great tribute to steam and shipping and I hope the lake huggers don't prevail. Conversion to natural gas is a crazy scheme that has never been tried and has never been permitted to operate with passengers aboard. Heavy oil conversion is more straight forward and tested. Perhaps with stack scrubbers this could work.
I think they should take the ash and press the water out of it and deposit the results into an old dump truck carried aboard. The technology for this is readily available. Reuse the same water to quench and sluice the ashes from the boilers.

I'm a lake hugger, tree hugger, animal hugger, etc, but I see the value of the Badger from practical economic, local transportation, and historic preservation perspectives. I think the coal ash is really not much of an environmental issue when one puts the various coal powered generating plants etc along the lakeshore into perspective, and I've told the EPA as much.

I've never understood why a ballast tank can't be converted for use to store the ash. And I don't know why some rules-addled paper pusher would be allowed to myopically put a major historic transportation service out of business(and I'm a greeny).

Nevertheless, this guy's proposal for the Seattle-Seward route seems focused on the Badger, while saying 'Spartan'.

[Norskellunge]

Not to make this a personal attack on whoever is behind the web site, but the design and method in which it was coded is very dated or extremely amateur.

Do we know if this is even a recent proposal? The copyright says 1981-2012, but can be coded to self-update based on the current date.

If it is in fact recent, I doubt very much its legitimacy and have a hard time believing investors could be found based on the appearance/condition of the site alone.

[Coalburner]

As a museum type person, I would love to see a steam carferry preserved, but it is very difficult to provide the funds for these kinds of preservations. Preserving any kind of ship is a very expensive process and continues to be expensive every year after preservation. The operating Badger is a great tribute to steam and shipping and I hope the lake huggers don't prevail. Conversion to natural gas is a crazy scheme that has never been tried and has never been permitted to operate with passengers aboard. Heavy oil conversion is more straight forward and tested. Perhaps with stack scrubbers this could work.
I think they should take the ash and press the water out of it and deposit the results into an old dump truck carried aboard. The technology for this is readily available. Reuse the same water to quench and sluice the ashes from the boilers.

[Ludington Rob]

The economics make this proposed plan unlikely. The cost to move the ship, re-power and refurbish would require a huge revenue stream to offset. There are other complicating factors as well.

I would love to see her move again under her own power. It is very unlikely that it will or could happen.

[Randy S]

I think this is a pretty far fetched idea as well as converting it to natural gas (no passenger ship runs boilers on natural gas at all).
I bet a lot of important parts are missing with no source for new parts.
And, I think the hull design (seasick special) would never fly out on the ocean, they would have to add stabilizers.
Basically the Spartan is a hull that is not up to date with modern maritime standards for just about anything.

If you look at the proposed route, they would be in relatively confined waters for the greater part of the trip. I agree however that stabilizers would be a necessity, perhaps with a rapid-transfer ballast system added.

[Rob W]

Figure out the Badger situation first. Who even cares about the Spartan when the badger saga is ongoing. Its like worrying about your old equipment guy when your star player is in jeopardy of not being able to play.

[MilwBob]

I really think that the best future for the S.S. Spartan unless she gets parted out is if a nonprofit group purchases/leases her for restoration into another museum ship.

When you have the Clipper in Muskegon and the City of Milwaukee in Manistee, Ludington's rich carferry history deserves a Museum Ship. While the Badger is, indeed, a fully operational Museum Ship in and of itself, I'd love to see the Spartan restored into a museum ship reflective of its heydey.

That's just my thought though.

Then you need to make a choice:preserve the Spartan as a museum ship, or preserve the City of Milwaukee as a museum ship. You cannot do both. Just my thoughts.

[Jason B]

I really think that the best future for the S.S. Spartan unless she gets parted out is if a nonprofit group purchases/leases her for restoration into another museum ship.

When you have the Clipper in Muskegon and the City of Milwaukee in Manistee, Ludington's rich carferry history deserves a Museum Ship. While the Badger is, indeed, a fully operational Museum Ship in and of itself, I'd love to see the Spartan restored into a museum ship reflective of its heydey.

That's just my thought though.

[Michigan sailor]

Coalburner is closest to the mark. Her engines and boilers have been parted out and ruined in the process, and factor in rust and corrosion thru out the boat, she is not usable again. I think the whole presentation is someone's pipe dream out in Seattle.

[MilwBob]

Even a cursory look at the website shows that this guy is a little off the beam with this proposal. Even if you over-look the numerous mis-spellings and poor sentence structure, every single photo posted is of the Badger and leads the viewer to assume that the Spartan has identical features and amenities. This guy seems to assume that the Spartan is in the same condition as the Badger. The only thing sound on the Spartan is the hull. The superstructure has serious rust problems and is in poor shape; neither the engines nor the boilers are currently operational and would need a lot of money to repair, if it were even possible. (The boilers alone would need a minimum $250,000 Each-there are 4- to bring back on line.) The stats claim a capacity of 25-30 railcars And up to 180 automobiles-no way, no how. The diagrams show they are putting passenger cabins in on the upper deck, replacing the crews quarters. Where they gonna put the crew? With all the new proposed passenger amenities would mean a rather large increase in crew. It seems they plan on converting the windlass area into crew quarters. That"ll go over good! If this guy can get any money for this venture, please let me know- I got this bridge in Brooklyn I've been trying to sell.

[LCNerd]

My first thought when reading this story was that LMC may Need to sell the Spartan possibly for no reason other than to provide funds to re-engine the Badger. Perhaps they know that the EPA is about to deny the request to continue to dump the by-product coal ash; and are moving pro-actively to ensure continued operations? If that's the case, I hope they're able to move forward and save the Badger through the sale of the Spartan hull.

[Coalburner]

I think this is a pretty far fetched idea as well as converting it to natural gas (no passenger ship runs boilers on natural gas at all).
I bet a lot of important parts are missing with no source for new parts.
And, I think the hull design (seasick special) would never fly out on the ocean, they would have to add stabilizers.
Basically the Spartan is a hull that is not up to date with modern maritime standards for just about anything.

[Brent]

One would assume that if the Spartin is bought and sent west that re-powering would be included in the modification and renovations. In my opinion it would be more cost effective to do the renovation and re-power on the lakes or east coast and send her on her way west under her own power. Seems it would be better then a towing bill for close to a million dollars to tow Spartin to Seattle. We hear deals like this all the time and 9 out of 10 never turn into anything. The fact that they have chosen a name gives a little creditability to the plan.

[Rob]

The proposal to use the Spartan(now in long term lay up in Ludington) as a Seattle, WA to Seward, AK rail/truck/auto/passenger ferry seems to me to really be focusing on the Badger. Could the interested party really be foreseeing the demise of LMC with the expiration of the Badger's permit to dump coal ash into Lake Michigan and proposing to purchase a functioning vessel?