William Clay Ford

[Jerry Lawson]

While it is not advisable, it can be done. They used to load the Quebecois at Thunder Bay using the end holds. The boat would come to Duluth with the center of the vessel empty except for some ballast. There was no way to put enough ballast in to equal the missing cargo. when loading the ship at Duluth, it was impossible to get all of the Huge hog out of her. Captain John Gratton used to just shake his head at what he was required to do. He knew that this was no way to load a ship, but it can be done and it has been done. I dont think that you would see this done today.

[hausen]

According to the statistics listed at the boatnerd.com fleet photo gallery page for the Gordon C. Leitch it looks like it was possible to see her with an empty or partially empty hold. She was almost certainly loading wheat at CHS if mn brett's story occurred within the last 6 or 7 years; shipments of anything besides wheat out of the Twin Ports have been relatively rare since 2004 or so. If all 1,295,535 cu. ft. (36,534 cu. meters) of the Leitch's cargo hold space were filled with wheat she'd have 28,100mt aboard. That much weight, however, would give her a draft of somewhere between 27.5' - 28', or almost 1.5' too deep for a Seaway transit (or for a successful departure from CHS). So it's entirely possible that Brett saw all but one of the Leitch's holds filled to the brim and the last one empty. It is fairly likely, however, that the hold in question didn't stay completely empty. Perhaps they loaded the partial hold last, or perhaps it was slated to be loaded at another elevator in the harbor, or perhaps at another port.

As for the general practice of leaving holds empty, if a vessel is designed to have the hull strength for it this is a common practice. Oceangoing vessels that have loaded grain on the Lakes down to the max 26' / 8m Seaway draft often have an empty hold or two that they stop and fill up once they're below Montreal and sailing in deeper channels.

[Randy S]

I was able to board the Gordon C. Leitch a couple summers ago loading grain at Harvest states.I am sure I saw at least one of the cargo holds left empty while all the rest were filled to the top.I talked to the Captain but did not ask Him why,but he did say that dock is tricky to pull out of because there is very little water left under the Boat when loaded down.Is it posible they are loaded down and still have empty holds?

Chances are that they may have had a split load - different types of grain that would be kept in separate holds, and had not yet loaded the one you saw empty.

[Jon Paul]

One of the characteristics of the more modern age (mid-50's on) American ore carriers was that the cargo holds side tanks sloped inboard. This helped center the ore, provided less room for cargo shifting and also made for easier unloading by shoreside rigs but greatly diminished the cubic capacity of the hold. The older American boats had a more or less rectangular cargo hold shape and that is why many of them went Canadian in their later years and finished their days carrying grain. During the early 1900's to the 1960's there were many "common carrier" Fleets such as Wilson, Hutchinson and Steinbrenner on the American side to name a few. They carried a lot of the grain and coal on the US side whenever and wherever needed. By 1970 these fleets had started to disappear and mostly all that remained after the collapse in the 80's were specialized fleets of self-unloaders either owned by steel companies or holding long term contracts with them, i.e. Interlake.

[Guest]

I was able to board the Gordon C. Leitch a couple summers ago loading grain at Harvest states.I am sure I saw at least one of the cargo holds left empty while all the rest were filled to the top.I talked to the Captain but did not ask Him why,but he did say that dock is tricky to pull out of because there is very little water left under the Boat when loaded down.Is it posible they are loaded down and still have empty holds?

No, that's not possible.

[mn brett]

I was able to board the Gordon C. Leitch a couple summers ago loading grain at Harvest states.I am sure I saw at least one of the cargo holds left empty while all the rest were filled to the top.I talked to the Captain but did not ask Him why,but he did say that dock is tricky to pull out of because there is very little water left under the Boat when loaded down.Is it posible they are loaded down and still have empty holds?

[hausen]

This has been an interesting thread, and I have a question about the captive boats. Is there much of a cost difference in building a boat for max cubes, vs one designed for just ore? Just curious.
Thanks

Seems doubtful but I'm not sure. During the mid-late 1950s naval architects and engineers were designing the first new Seaway sized vessels for the Canadian fleets planning on entering the grain-ore trade. There might've been some additional cost involved back then in learning how to build a straight deck laker that large with max cubic capacity in mind. At that time U.S. steel companies weren't too interested in breaking into the Seaway grain-ore routes so they weren't about to bother re-inventing the standard iron ore-oriented laker design they'd been formulating for decades. As far as the present day goes I'd guess that naval architects, engineers, and shipbuilders have bulker design down to a science and designing a ship with cubic capacity vs. dense cargo specialization is probably more a matter of shipowner preference and less a matter of cost.

Now a lot of the '50s vintage U.S. lakers we've been talking about in this thread had okay cubic capacity, just not great cubic capacity. Since 1960 there have been several lakers built on the U.S. side with notably and exceptionally low cubic capacity and high specialization for the ore trades. These ships include Edward L. Ryerson, Stewart J. Cort, Edwin H. Gott, and Edgar B. Speer. To see any of them ever haul anything but iron ore products would be an extremely rare occurrence.

[Diver Dan]

Ships constructed with only ore/pellets in mind would have narrower cargo holds, to keep the load close to the center-line of the boat. Wider holds would allow more space for cargo to shift in heavy weather, compromising stability. Something you would live with if you really expected to shift from one cargo to another, but something to avoid if you have only one cargo in mind. The ship as a whole is not narrower because you still need a large displacement to support the heavy load of the ore.

[Guest]

This has been an interesting thread, and I have a question about the captive boats. Is there much of a cost difference in building a boat for max cubes, vs one designed for just ore? Just curious.
Thanks

[standuffer]

If this is the case, why weren’t all straight deck Lakers built for maximum cargo space? As long as they were structure capable of carrying all types of bulk cargo, wouldn’t that have made them more versatile?

Back in the day, ships were build by steel companies to service their own facilities and needs. For example, steel compainies liike USS, Republic, Bethlehem, and Inland were interested in carrying iron ore only. Gain commodities were left to the smaller less significate carriers.

[JBM]

If this is the case, why weren’t all straight deck Lakers built for maximum cargo space? As long as they were structure capable of carrying all types of bulk cargo, wouldn’t that have made them more versatile?

[Richard Jenkins]

Iron ore is a very dense, heavy material, so boats loading ore will reach maximum draft long before they run out of space in the hold. As a result, boats designed specifically as ore carriers tend to have a lower cubic capacity with more space devoted to things like ballast tanks and crew tunnels (the Ryerson is a good example of this, you can practically drive through her tunnels).

On the other hand, you can fill practically every cubic inch of a cargo hold with grain and still not load her down to her marks, so dedicated grain haulers are designed with as much cubic capacity as possible.

Boats designed specifically for the coal trade like the ASC footers are also designed for higher cubics than say the former Bethlehem Steel footers which are outwardly almost identical.

[hausen]

Ore carriers certainly can carry grain - in fact the ore/grain trade is the bread and butter for Canadian bulkers like the Algocape, Montrealais, or Pineglen. The carriage of ore on one trip and then a consumable like grain on the next is not an issue - a ship's cargo holds can readily be well cleaned and dried out between cargoes if needed.

The issue with many American lakers like the Humphrey or Sherwin is cubic capacity. Iron ore is one of the densest cargoes a freighter carries while grains are some of the least dense. A ton of wheat or especially barley or corn takes up much more space in a ship's cargo hold than a ton of iron ore. American lakers like the Humphrey were designed with the carriage of iron ore, not grain, in mind. Their cargo holds didn't have as much cubic capacity as they could have for a vessel that size. That means that if one were to try to put a load of grain aboard, say, the Humphrey, her holds would've been filled completely to the brim with grain long before she reached her maximum cargo capacity measured in weight. She would've likely maxed out at something like 18,000 tons of wheat even though on the same day in the same port she could've been loaded with 23,000 or 24,000 tons of iron ore.

Similarly sized Canadian bulkers, on the other hand, were designed and built specifically to carry grain down the Seaway from the lakes to Canadian transshipment ports (Montreal, Quebec, Sorel, Trois-Rivieres, Baie Comeau, and Port Cartier), and then iron ore from Canadian ports on the Gulf of St. Lawrence (Pointe Noire, Sept-Isles) back into the lakes. Even though their outer dimensions were very similar to ships like the Humphrey, their cargo holds had much more space in them, allowing them to simultaneously be filled up with a cargo of grain but also weighed down 'to their marks'. The difference between the Humphrey at 710' x 75' carrying 18,000 tons of wheat per trip and, say, the Menihek Lake at 715' x 75' and able to carry 23,000 or 24,000 tons of wheat per trip might not seem like much but over 16 - 20 grain loads per year that difference starts to add up. A mothballed Humphrey would not likely have been much of an ideal candidate to replace an aging early '60s-vintage Canadian bulker being retired in the late '80s or early '90s.

[jared]

Why can't ore carriers carry grains or other consumables like ore?what is the difference?

[hausen]

The Humphrey could have been useful to one of the Canadian fleets without any shortening as she was 710x75.

She probably would have been useful to a Canadian fleet in the iron ore trade and not much else. If she's anything like her later cousins (John Sherwin and Shenango II / Beeghly / Oberstar) her holds don't have the cubic capacity to be very competitive in the grain trade.

Even in her 806' LOA lengthened state, the Sherwin only has the cubic capacity for something like 21,000 or 22,000mt of wheat or soybeans, and far fewer tons of corn or barley. A rough estimate of what the Humphrey would've been able to carry at 710' or even lengthened to 730' or 740' would be in the range of 18,000 - 19,500mt of wheat or soy. A similarly sized Canadian laker designed with the grain trade in mind (ie. cargo hold cubic capacity maximized) easily carries 24,000 - 26,000mt of wheat or soy.

[MN Boater]

Great pictures of some nice looking straight deckers Capt Metz.
Thanks for sharing!

[Capt R Metz]

Pictures of the Joseph S Wood and the John Dykstra.

[Guest]

I don't know about them trying to sell one of their footers in the early 80's, but they did sell the 1000 foot Lewis Wilson Foy to Columbia as part of the same deal where they sold the Sparrows Point.

The Humphrey could have been useful to one of the Canadian fleets without any shortening as she was 710x75.

[LeoA]

30 years now and over half of her life later and the Sherwin still sits. We're going to need a bit of a luck with a good economy and increased demand for commodities like iron ore around the Great Lakes for that investment to ever be made on just her.

There seems little chance that the Homer, Ford, and Sherwin (And several other modern vessels with nothing wrong with them like the Humphrey) would've been returned to service in US trades had they all been kept around. I suppose they would've stood a chance after sitting idle until the past 10 years or so of being sold to Canadian fleets, shortened to 730', and replacing Canadian bulkers that were at the end of their lifes or entering the Lower Lakes fleet.

Didn't Bethlehem even try to sell one of their new 1000' vessels in the early 80's? And they sold the Sparrows Point off at the end of the 80's, a ship they had just converted a decade earlier. There was little hope for the Homer and the Johnstown despite being modern ships. Even if they had been self unloaders, there just wasn't the cargo there for them to haul.

[Guest]

Why wasn't the Homer and Ford put into a long term layup like the Sherwin? I think that is what baffles all of us. I just can't see why seemingly brand new boats were sent to the breakers, even if the economy is bad. It dosnt cost much to have a inoperable vessel

Ford and Bethlehem were both fleets that hauled cargos for their own mills, unlike Interlake. In the case of the Homer i'd say Bethlehem knew they'd never need the tonnage again, they just built the Cort, Foy and Burns Harbor. The Clay Ford was in much the same situation, with the purchase of the Greene and Stirling from Cleveland Cliffs they knew she wasn't needed. Why save something that you know you won't use. Further, at that point in time no other fleet would buy them as they couldn't keep the hulls they already had full.