American Spirit Near Allision at Port Huron 5-27-2025

[Jared]

I think the smart decision was made by trying to get her stern as close to the seawall as possible. That would allow the current to swing the bow out and then flow along the side of the hull to increase the distance between the wall and the hull. Her belching that diesel means she was having some problems before hand.

[Guest Jon Paul]

In reply to Ashland69: the section of river where this occurred is reserved for one-way traffic. Two ships cannot meet in this area ever since the collision between the Parker Evans and Sidney E. Smith Jr. in 1972. Hence there is no “upbound channel” and “downbound channel”. In fact, nowhere in the St. Clair River are there separate channels for opposing traffic.

I don’t know the parameters of the “least vertical clearance” for the Blue Water Bridge. This information comes from official US Navigation Publications. Since there is no defined “boundary” of the shipping channel under the bridge, it most likely just refers to the lowest structure of the bridge at any point over the water.

Not to get too far off subject, but wasn't there a separate channel in the St. Clair River on either side of the sandbar just off of St. Clair, Michigan that used to be used by some vessels up to the 1960s timeframe? I have seen a few photographs of vessels passing St. Clair with ships appearing to be in motion on the opposite side of this sandbar area. I also believe that there was also a separate channel on the Canadian side of Stag Island around the same timeframe. I do recall seeing the Soconav tanker J. C. Philips use that channel one time in the early 1990s after it seemed to have experienced some maneuvering issue while shifting docks at Sarnia and almost went up against the shore at Marysville, Michigan. After going downstream some distance it turned and came up the back side of Stag Island (toward the Canadian shore from my perspective on the American shore). That is the only time I have seen that happen.

In the 70's when upbound in the St Clair River and needing to fuel at Shell in Corunna we would regularly take the channel east of Stag Island to access the dock.

[Guest]

In reply to Ashland69: the section of river where this occurred is reserved for one-way traffic. Two ships cannot meet in this area ever since the collision between the Parker Evans and Sidney E. Smith Jr. in 1972. Hence there is no “upbound channel” and “downbound channel”. In fact, nowhere in the St. Clair River are there separate channels for opposing traffic.

I don’t know the parameters of the “least vertical clearance” for the Blue Water Bridge. This information comes from official US Navigation Publications. Since there is no defined “boundary” of the shipping channel under the bridge, it most likely just refers to the lowest structure of the bridge at any point over the water.

Not to get too far off subject, but wasn't there a separate channel in the St. Clair River on either side of the sandbar just off of St. Clair, Michigan that used to be used by some vessels up to the 1960s timeframe? I have seen a few photographs of vessels passing St. Clair with ships appearing to be in motion on the opposite side of this sandbar area. I also believe that there was also a separate channel on the Canadian side of Stag Island around the same timeframe. I do recall seeing the Soconav tanker J. C. Philips use that channel one time in the early 1990s after it seemed to have experienced some maneuvering issue while shifting docks at Sarnia and almost went up against the shore at Marysville, Michigan. After going downstream some distance it turned and came up the back side of Stag Island (toward the Canadian shore from my perspective on the American shore). That is the only time I have seen that happen.

[Guest]

In reply to Ashland69: the section of river where this occurred is reserved for one-way traffic. Two ships cannot meet in this area ever since the collision between the Parker Evans and Sidney E. Smith Jr. in 1972. Hence there is no “upbound channel” and “downbound channel”. In fact, nowhere in the St. Clair River are there separate channels for opposing traffic.

I don’t know the parameters of the “least vertical clearance” for the Blue Water Bridge. This information comes from official US Navigation Publications. Since there is no defined “boundary” of the shipping channel under the bridge, it most likely just refers to the lowest structure of the bridge at any point over the water.

[ashland69]

I was able to view two videos of the event. Having sailed on the Great Lakes myself, it looked to me like, for some reason, steering headway was momentarily lost. This may have resulted in the rudder shifting back uncontrollably toward a midship position, causing the turn to widen and straighten out, thus moving the American Spirit from the upbound channel and into the downbound channel. They obviously caught the "slide" and corrected their heading. A big concern I would have had in the midst of all this, is the affect of shore suction on the vessel itself. Watching the videos, I was watching closely to see if the Spirit would end up grounding along the seawall. Fortunately, no one was downbound, at the time! It wouldn't surprise me if the Spirit doesn't spend a bit of time at Fraser having things checked out.

[Guest]

The bridge has a least vertical clearance of 135’.

Is that derived off of the lowest point over the shipping channel or the lowest point of any part of the structure that is directly above the water such as the edge of the shoreline? It may be comparing apples to oranges but I seem to recall some problems encountered by trucks in the Detroit area that would hit parts of the overpass if they were on the outside lane hugging the shoulder as some of the bridges had arch structures that were slightly lower at the edges than at the middle. This would have been in the late 1980s timeframe when I lived in the area. I'm assuming those bridge height dimensions may have possibly been measured from the lanes and not necessarily the only available spaces a vehicle could pass beneath.

[Guest]

The bridge has a least vertical clearance of 135’.

[Guest]

The incident involving the American Spirit on May 27, 2025 when it almost went up against the seawall at Port Huron brought back memories of the Lewis Wilson Foy doing almost the same thing at the same spot back in October of 1989. If I recall correctly, the incident with the Foy involved the thousand-footer having to veer around some pleasure craft that did not give way in the shipping channel. I don't know if there was anything similar involved in the American Spirit incident yesterday. It is amazing how close these ships managed to sail along the seawall and not strike it or hit the bottom, both were in ballast at the time so that may have factored in the successful outcome of these events.

On a side note, I wonder what the clearance is on the arches reaching beneath the spans of the two Blue Water Bridges as they come up from the pillars to the underside of the span. I would assume that the clearance is much less than at mid-span but it does not appear that there was much clearance between the superstructure of the American Spirit and these arches, although that could be somewhat misleading dependent upon the angle of the footage. When the Foy had its troubles, there was only the original span in existence at that time but I believe that ship has a much higher superstructure than that of the American Spirit. Photographs I have seen do not show the stern of the Foy as it actually passed under the span but rather as its forward section was passing, but I would assume that it was close. It also appears that the arches of the original span are somewhat lower and extend further over the water than that of the second span, but then, again, this could be due to the perspective of the images.