St. Clair Keel Laying in 1974

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Guest

Re: St. Clair Keel Laying in 1974

Unread post by Guest »

To add to the confusion, Hull 716 (that became the Walter J. McCarthy), was originally allocated for a second 770-foot self-unloader, similar to the St. Clair.
Guest

Re: St. Clair Keel Laying in 1974

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I've read the same paper from SNAME as you did regarding the Presque Isle.

The loop-belt used in the Bayship thousand footers, same as the AmShip thousand footers, were, I believe supplied by Stephens-Adamson. The Stewart J. Cort's self-unloading system was supplied by Hewitt-Robinson, a subsidiary of Litton Industries.
GuestfromEU
Posts: 359
Joined: December 7, 2014, 10:33 am

Re: St. Clair Keel Laying in 1974

Unread post by GuestfromEU »

Yes, RA Stearn is the firm I was thinking of - thank you for the correction.

Interesting to note that Bay Engineering is tied to them.

Marine Consultants & Designers was a error on my end in connection with Bay Shipbuilding. I recently read a paper on the Presque Isle and recalled MC&D named in the paper.

Was Stephens-Adamson involved in the unloading machinery design or supplier? I recall them supplying material for various Canadian ships c.1970s-80s. Not sure if they worked with Bay Shipbuilding. I believe at one time, Stephens-Adamson was owned in part by Allis Chalmers? Being a Wisconsin company, AC may have supplied many parts to Bay Shipbuilding as standard machinery, in terms of pumps, controls, etc. I know Bay Shipbuilding tended to use local vendors for many items - did American Shipbuilding do the same with Ohio-based vendors?
boatsnot

Re: Bayship Footer Contracts

Unread post by boatsnot »

Attached are two early news paper articles about the first Bayship footer contracts. The first / lower article is dated Feb. 28 1974 and has the firm building (3) footers for ASC. The second article is from Feb. 18 1975 and has (4) footers contracted, (2) for ASC and (2) for Bethlehem steel. I suspect that ASC sold the Berth rights to USS for the Gott and Bethlehem bought their own berth rights.
Attachments
footers 1.jpg
footers 1.jpg (38.92 KiB) Viewed 2412 times
footers 2.jpg
footers 2.jpg (46.18 KiB) Viewed 2412 times
boatsnot

Re: St. Clair Keel Laying in 1974

Unread post by boatsnot »

ST. Clair keel laying image attached
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IMG_2192 (2).JPG
IMG_2192 (2).JPG (65.24 KiB) Viewed 2441 times
William Lafferty
Posts: 1491
Joined: March 13, 2010, 10:51 am

Re: St. Clair Keel Laying in 1974

Unread post by William Lafferty »

Richard Stearn joined the Leathem D. Smith Shiobuilding Company in 1940 almost directly after graduating from the Webb Institure and co-ordinated Smith's massive World War II building program with the Navy an Maritime Commission. When Smith drowned in a boating accident Stearn established R. A. Stearn, Inc., at Sturgeon Bay and establishe a close relationship with Christy Corporation when after Christenson, who had been Smith's superintendent, took over Smith's yard. His most notable designs are probably the Badger and Spartan in that period. Stearn became, in essence, the in-house naval architect for Christy and later Bay Ship. I'm sure he was the supervising naval architect on the Bay boats. He certainly was for the Gott. H. C. Downer formed H. C. Downer & Associates at Cleveland in 1951 and in 1954 Wilson Marine Transit Company bought it and made Downer a vice president. Downer left in 1959 and in 1963 the firm became Marine Consultants & Designers, still a part of Wilson, and eventually Litton, and designed, among others, the Blough and Cort. It had a close working relationship with American Ship Building.
Guest

Re: St. Clair Keel Laying in 1974

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R. A. Stearn is the design firm that designed nearly all of Bay Shipbuilding's ships and conversions. It was founded by Robert Stearn, who sold the business to Joseph Fischer in 1986. Today, R. A. Stearn is known as Bay Engineering.
Guest

Re: St. Clair Keel Laying in 1974

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Was that actually the designer or just a drafting company that drew the technical drawings?
Guest

Re: St. Clair Keel Laying in 1974

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I just took a quick photo to show who the designer of the BayShip thousand footers was.
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20180213_120513-747x1328.jpg
GuestfromEU
Posts: 359
Joined: December 7, 2014, 10:33 am

Re: St. Clair Keel Laying in 1974

Unread post by GuestfromEU »

As pointed out, building slots are not the same as selling rights to a hull under construction (or beyond a letter of intent stage). If ASC declined the option for a vessel, and forfeited the rights to said option, the shipyard has the right to market that spot to another client.

Likewise, I do not believe Bay Shipbuilding owned rights to any vessel they built. My memory is likely wrong here, but was not Marine Consultants & Designers (or similar name) responsible for the design of the ships built at Bay Shipbuilding at that time? While shipyards certainly do produce their own ship architecture, especially nowadays, an independent naval architecture and marine engineering firm will review the plans (or more than not, they will design the ship from the beginning). In this case, US Steel could have easily purchased the rights to build the Speer at a yard of their choosing. As long as the naval architect was compensated, they do not care what yard builds their design.

Like buying a new, pre-construction house in a modern development, you (the buyer) may be shown some standard plans, along with basic options to change at a minor cost. More substantial changes, like a larger garage, fourth bedroom, etc. are much higher change orders. A shipyard works similarly, where a basic design is presented for sale. The shipowner will be able to make smaller cost changes, such as main engine manufacturer, auxiliary machinery brands, interior joinery/color scheme, etc. Changing to the magnitude of an extra deck (MV Burns Harbor), cargo hold arrangement (MV Edwin H Gott), or others are more significant in cost and materials procurement. Class and the USCG must also approve these revisions, which require further review than a simple change of using ABB switchgear compared to Siemens.

Side note, I spent several years in Korea, at Hyundai Heavy Industries and Samsung Heavy Industries doing commissioning and acceptance proving for a firm specializing in this work. My concentration was on VLCC's, though we did some Post Panamax containership work as well. Much of the machinery and sub-assemblies/equipment is common to all of the yards, and it was not unheard of to see Samsung drawings in my office at Ulsan (Hyundai yard). While Bay Shipbuilding and American Shipbuilding were different in the sense they used different engines, auxiliary machinery (pumps, coolers, etc.), in present-day Korea, all of these components are sourced from the same manufacturers. Hyundai electric motors on a Samsung-built ship, Keystone valves, Dae Jin anchors, Kang Rim boilers, Kongsberg automation...it's all common to most ships, no matter which Korean yard builds the ship itself. This is seen in the USA on ships built at Aker Philadelphia and NASSCO San Diego...they build ships designed by Hyundai and Daewoo, respectively. Much of the internal components and machinery of the ships are the same Korean manufacture, all down to the same light switches, floor tile, main engines, generators, etc.

Sorry to hijack the thread. Thought some would be interested.
Guest

Re: St. Clair Keel Laying in 1974

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I think some of the confusion here stems from the idea that ASC was to build a certain number of vessels but then cut back their plans due to a economic recession. I would tend to believe that we are dealing more with building slots rather than a ship intended for ASC being redesigned into one for US Steel or any other fleet. Although they share many general design characteristics, I assume that each of the footers built by Bay Shipbuilding would have been tailored to the needs of each individual customer. From what I have read, the use of the shuttle booms on the Blough, Gott, and Speer were influenced by labor issued involving the unions representing the USS fleet's straight decker fleet and the self-unloaders of it former Bradley Transportation Division. As USS contracted the American Ship Building Company to build the Edgar B. Speer at Lorain even as work was about to begin on the Gott at Sturgeon Bay, they must have held rights to the design to have another carrier built by a competitor's yard unless there was some type of licensing agreement. Incidentally, I recall USS filing a lawsuit against Bay Shipbuilding concerning the construction of the Gott, but have no information concerning the aspects of the case.
garbear

Re: St. Clair Keel Laying in 1974

Unread post by garbear »

Guest wrote:The BayShip thousand footers have the exact same hull, but it's internally where the differences are. The Edwin H. Gott is in a different class compared to the other Bayship thousand footers. She has different machinery, self-unloading motors and belt widths, larger ballast tanks and smaller hatches as a result. The Gott was also designed for South Chicago and Conneaut besides Gary. In fact, US Steel was planning at the time of the Gott's design and construction, a new steel mill next to Conneaut, Ohio. A new unloading dock was planned for the east side of the existing ore dock and Edwin H. Gott would have been a prime vessel for that dock.

The other thousand footers; Walter J. McCarthy, Indiana Harbor, American Century, American Integrity and Burns Harbor all have the same machinery and self-unloading machinery. Generally their differences are in a different accomodation layout, extra walkways, watertight doors and in the case of the Burns Harbor (an extra deck level in the accomodation block) and 12" inch hatch coamings. (The Americam Integrity also has 12 inch hatch coamings.)
The Gott with the shuttle boom couldn't have unloaded in South Chicago. There was no unloading hopper.
Guest

Re: St. Clair Keel Laying in 1974

Unread post by Guest »

Let me re-phrase the question a little.

It was mentioned earlier that ASC ordered 5 footers but they only took delivery of 2 of them due to the 1974 recession: the Belle River and Indiana Harbor. I would consider these two boats sisters, twins. Bethlehem Steel took delivery of the ASC footer builds 3 & 4 and named them Lewis Wilson Foy and Burns Harbor. I would consider these two to be sisters to the Belle and Indy as well even through the Burns is a bit different. The last remaining ASC build, #5, became the Edwin H. Gott. Now, the Gott is substantially different than the others. So let me ask the question this way: Were all 5 of the ASC ordered footers originally meant to be sisters? If the answer is NO, how was ASC planning to use the Gott with the short boom and narrow hatches? Was ASC planning on using her on a Taconite-only run to Gary or Conneaut which were the only places that would accommodate that short shuttle boom at the time? I'm guessing that USS made some revisions to the design.
Guest

Re: St. Clair Keel Laying in 1974

Unread post by Guest »

The BayShip thousand footers have the exact same hull, but it's internally where the differences are. The Edwin H. Gott is in a different class compared to the other Bayship thousand footers. She has different machinery, self-unloading motors and belt widths, larger ballast tanks and smaller hatches as a result. The Gott was also designed for South Chicago and Conneaut besides Gary. In fact, US Steel was planning at the time of the Gott's design and construction, a new steel mill next to Conneaut, Ohio. A new unloading dock was planned for the east side of the existing ore dock and Edwin H. Gott would have been a prime vessel for that dock.

The other thousand footers; Walter J. McCarthy, Indiana Harbor, American Century, American Integrity and Burns Harbor all have the same machinery and self-unloading machinery. Generally their differences are in a different accomodation layout, extra walkways, watertight doors and in the case of the Burns Harbor (an extra deck level in the accomodation block) and 12" inch hatch coamings. (The Americam Integrity also has 12 inch hatch coamings.)
Guest

Re: St. Clair Keel Laying in 1974

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Duluth Guest wrote:So did each company alter the base design to suit their needs more appropriately or were the Gott and Burns Harbor always planned to be a little different than the rest of the "Bay Footers"? I was always under the impression that USS GLF altered the design of the Gott to better cater to the Two Harbors - Gary runs and to specifically haul taconite.
The Gott was always designed to haul taconite. Adding the deck boom didn't change what cargo she hauled.
Duluth Guest

Re: St. Clair Keel Laying in 1974

Unread post by Duluth Guest »

So did each company alter the base design to suit their needs more appropriately or were the Gott and Burns Harbor always planned to be a little different than the rest of the "Bay Footers"? I was always under the impression that USS GLF altered the design of the Gott to better cater to the Two Harbors - Gary runs and to specifically haul taconite.
boatsnot

Re: St. Clair Keel Laying in 1974 photo

Unread post by boatsnot »

Keel laying of the ST. Clair with out fan fair.
Denny

Re: St. Clair Keel Laying in 1974

Unread post by Denny »

Okay I just checked out my Digital Photos and can cofirm it now with 100% accuracy that indeed the St. Clair had the blue during the 2006 season however, in 2007 she had the blue removed and it was all white at that point. As I mentioned in my earlier post on the McCarthy, she had the blue painted out during the 2016 season in either late Spring or early Summer. I think she had it removed in June 2016 sometime if my memory serves my right on this one? Hope that all of this information has helped you out. A little bit off subject here but, the Burns Harbor remember also had her paint as well removed a few years ago just below the pilothouse as far as where the boom and pilothouse meet. Not sure what season it was when that happned as I recall seeing her in 2005 at least that year still in Bethlehem colors in August but, she had the ASC stacks on her then since she was just purchased by them sometime in 2006. Again, hope that all of this information I provided has helped out.
Denny

Re: St. Clair Keel Laying in 1974

Unread post by Denny »

The McCarthy had the blue removed just last season sometime in either late Spring or early Summer. Not sure when the St. Clair had it done possibly during the 2007 or 2008 season as I will have to do more research from my digital photos to find out more on it.
Guest

Re: St. Clair Keel Laying in 1974

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mccollochd wrote:
And, finally, does the St Clair still have the blue nose on the unloader system? Does the McCarthy still have a blue nose??

Neither have the blue paint any more.
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