Thunder Bay Ore Dock

[Guest]

After the Canadian straightdeckers left the ore offload in Hamilton Cleveland or Chicago if it was after supper first thing next day down the hold cleaned and dried before Tbay nice out off with the hatches to dry out the water!

[garbear]

What happened to the "Hatches secured before leaving port"? I sailed the Lakes from 1956 thru 1970 Great Lakes Steamship, Wilson Transit Co and Pittsburg Steamship (GLF) and we stuck pretty tight to that old adage...We might pull a few hatches in the rivers but like I said a "few".

I imagine that it was more of a reflection of the policies of the 1st Mate and Captain than a change in company rules. Some 1st Mates were more proactive in getting painting and maintenance done and with an agreeable Captain would bend the rules a bit.

I sailed with 7 different Captains and at least that many 1st Mates and it was okay for all of them to go with hatch covers off. Got to remember the Clarke was a Lake Michigan boat a lot of the time. If we just painted in the St. Mary's we probably wouldn't have got the painting done.

[Jon Paul]

What happened to the "Hatches secured before leaving port"? I sailed the Lakes from 1956 thru 1970 Great Lakes Steamship, Wilson Transit Co and Pittsburg Steamship (GLF) and we stuck pretty tight to that old adage...We might pull a few hatches in the rivers but like I said a "few".

I imagine that it was more of a reflection of the policies of the 1st Mate and Captain than a change in company rules. Some 1st Mates were more proactive in getting painting and maintenance done and with an agreeable Captain would bend the rules a bit.

[Gurst]

The paint we used was all Sherwin Williams. It was specialty marine industrial paint with accelerators and retarders for colder or hotter weather. We painted decks on the Huron Fleet in 35-40 degree weather. It cured just fine. I spent many hours on watch painting the holds on the McKee Sons one summer. We sprayed them. Horrible chore, all dressed up in hazmat suits mask, breather etc. hot down in the hold with sun beating down n of course little air movement. the paint dried within 30 minutes and was cured hard within a few hours. Did a lot of painting holds, hatches and coamings on Steinbrenner boats. Lots of long runs both downbound and upbound. Of course, yes, the hatches were all closed and secured/ tarped for the entire trip when carrying grain. But upbound we painted after we cleaned and dried. With average 96 hour trips both up and down it gave sufficient dry time. Sometimes with ore for Lackawanna we painted downbound. I understand hugh3 experience in his day but things change. I can only speak for my experience and I went steam boating all through the 70s until the collapse came in 1980-81.

[Guest]

When I sailed for GLF (1983-2013) we would open just a few hatches (one compartment) to paint the hatch coamings plus the upper part of the cargo hold while loaded with calm weather.

[garbear]

How about dry time for the paint? It must be fast so when you go to load it is dry.
Tell us about that.

Only painted when the boat was loaded. And you painted from the tank top level and above. Also the cargo hold arches. Had plenty of time for paint to dry.

[Guest]

When I sailed for GLF (1983-2013) we would open just a few hatches (one compartment) to paint the hatch coamings plus the upper part of the cargo hold while loaded with calm weather.

[RCRVRP]

How about dry time for the paint? It must be fast so when you go to load it is dry.
Tell us about that.

[garbear]

What happened to the "Hatches secured before leaving port"? I sailed the Lakes from 1956 thru 1970 Great Lakes Steamship, Wilson Transit Co and Pittsburg Steamship (GLF) and we stuck pretty tight to that old adage...We might pull a few hatches in the rivers but like I said a "few".

They were secured, just opened them up out in the lake. When we painted cargo holds at the end of the day we kept the ladder hooks over the coaming and would put some 2 x 4s on the top of the coamings and then set the hatch cover on them so you could get some air into the hold. GLF must have changed after you were done sailing because it was common practice to remove hatches in the lake when I sailed.

[hugh3]

What happened to the "Hatches secured before leaving port"? I sailed the Lakes from 1956 thru 1970 Great Lakes Steamship, Wilson Transit Co and Pittsburg Steamship (GLF) and we stuck pretty tight to that old adage....We might pull a few hatches in the rivers but like I said a "few".

[garbear]

Never painted with hatch cover off out in the lake nor with an empty cargo hold..

Never painted with an empty hold, but the 9 years I sailed for USS/GLF every year we painted out in the lake with the hatch covers off.

[Guest]

Never painted with hatch cover off out in the lake nor with an empty cargo hold..

To get off subject for a moment, I had an uncle that sailed from the 1950s thru much of the 1960s and he always said that some of the ships he sailed on could be somewhat lax in the practice of securing hatches and operating with them off.

[hugh3]

Never painted with hatch cover off out in the lake nor with an empty cargo hold...

[Ray]

There was a ship loading when we were there, the recollection of my then-8 year old brain is that it may have been a US Steel vessel, but I don't know if that is possible. (Was a red hulled boat).[/quote]

Probably bad form to quote your own post, but....

This one has been bugging me in the days since I wrote it. I'm pretty certain that it was a US boat that we saw loading, because that seemed odd to us. But red hull was definitely not an Inland boat. Did other US fleets load in Thunder Bay as well?

I really doubt that there are records out there anywhere, but it should have been Aug 17, 18, or 19, 1976 that we were there.

For what it's worth, from Thunday Bay we drove across to the Steep Rock mine. At that time they had a driving tour available, They'd lead a group of cars around in with a pilot car to see the operations in the mine. Compared to what we were used to in Minnesota, the access and the ore docks and the mine was pretty remarkable.

[Guest]

I second Garbears comment. We did it on the McKee Sons and also some of the Steinbrenner boats when upbound light for another grain load . This was in the 70s.

[garbear]

Quite unusual to see a boat out on the lake with hatches open!!

Did it on the Clarke all the time. Paint cargo hold, paint under side of the hatches.

I forgot-paint coamings. The hatches off out it the lake happened more often than you'd think. Only way to get the painting done.

[garbear]

Quite unusual to see a boat out on the lake with hatches open!!

Did it on the Clarke all the time. Paint cargo hold, paint under side of the hatches.

[Guest]

Quite unusual to see a boat out on the lake with hatches open!!

I thought the same thing. Seems unusual for ship to operate in such a manner out of the rivers.

[hugh3]

Quite unusual to see a boat out on the lake with hatches open!!

[Guest]

Inland Steel formed a Canadian subsidiary, named Caland Ore Company is 1953. The ore body, which was part of Steep Rock Iron Mines Inc, was under a lake and over 300 feet of silt. It took nearly five years to pump and dredge the lake until the ore body was exposed.

Shipment of the first iron ore commenced in 1964 and in 1965 an iron ore pellet plant became operational.

In late 1979, the mine and pellet plant was closed due to the poor quality of the ore.

http://caland.freeservers.com/history.html