Letters on the mast of great lakes freighters

[FWE]

White C Red Star, tell em who we are, Columbia-Columbia-Columbia”

[hugh3]

When walking back up the dock in Gary the Captain of a boat noticed that a Pumpkin had been placed over the whistle light.

It was removed before we left port... Dam college boys......

[Reiss Recollections]

The whistle lights on the forward masts of the Reiss freighters were a large "R", just like their stack emblem, but smaller, hollow sheet metal with incandescent light bulbs. I have the one from the Charles C. Reiss, last owned by one of her finest captains, Ray Warner!

[Guest]

JB Ford had a Huron Cement “H” on the forward mast until scrapping began. The William Clay Ford pilot house in Detroit and the Mather in Cleveland have the respective Ford F and the Cleveland Cliffs logo in the diamond, as well.

[Guest]

I recall the Interlake Steamship Company vessels having the letters P & M on their mast lights to denote Pickands Mather. Also, I believe that when Upper Lakes Shipping took over the Papachriditis fleet in the early 1970s it simply turned the mathematical symbol for Pi used by that fleet upside down to make the letter U on those ships.

[Guest]

The Collision Regulations say the following; (I culled it a little as it's a bit long-winded)

Rule 34
Manoeuvring and Warning Signals...

(b) Any vessel may supplement the whistle signals prescribed in paragraph (a) of this Rule by light signals, repeated as appropriate, whilst the manoeuvre is being carried out:

(i) these light signals shall have the following significance:
— one flash to mean “I am altering my course to starboard”, etc etc...

Salt water ships I have worked on had an all round light at the masthead synch'd with the whistle, newer lakers have the same. Older lakers used the large lights with the company Logo.

[Guest999]

The whistle light on many of the conventional 'fore and aft' designed freighters of Algoma Central Marine featured an 'AC'. I was shipkeeper on the Algosteel in early 2016 in Toronto for seven weeks, and I noticed there was a noticeable tilt to starboard of the letters. This topic prompted me to go through past ACC vessels in the photo galleries, where I confirmed that this was a quirk limited to the Algosteel. All other ships in the fleet had the AC in a vertical orientation.

[guest]

rob thats a very good suggestion a steamship deserves a real steam whistle for a price im sure a good used one could be found ever had a "steam whistle" beer from toronto? comes in an old style geen beer bottle to wet your whistle so to speak

[Rob]

the ss badger has a plain orange light that shines when the whistle is blown simple but a whistle light none the less

Someone should stick the bug in their ear to add an old timey steam whistle to the assortment of whistles. It might add a lot to the steam cachet of the old girl...

[badger]

the ss badger has a plain orange light that shines when the whistle is blown simple but a whistle light none the less

[Guest]

Cliffs had a diamond with white lights on the four sides and a red-lighted"C" in the center.

[Zeek92]

I was wondering if whistle lights are required anymore on lake freighters in this day of radios, radar and GPS. I watch for them, some boats have them still, but seems others don't; at least I don't see them.

[Denny]

Algoma used to have the AC for Algoma Central and CSL still has the CSL I think on a few of their ships?

[pcolachap]

These were called "whistle lights". They lighted up when the whistle was blown. They were unique to each fleet. Hanna's light was the Hanna star, Pickands Mather PM, Wilson W and so on. As a youngester making a trip with dad one day, he told me to go out in front of the pilot house. I was afraid he was going to blow the whistle to scare me, but no, he just manually turned on the whistle light. They have long since been replaced by a single white light on the forward mast. Anyone else want to include other companies lights?

[BigRiver]

Letter represents the owner, here, F is for Ford Motor Co.
B for Bethlehem Steel
H for Huron Cement, etc

[Corey Pritchard Stephen]

Hello Everyone,

I have recently been looking at a wide variety of great lakes vessels and have repeatedly come across a number of images with ships that seem to have letters attached to the masts and for the life of me I could not find out what they mean or why they are there so I decided to come to this discussion board to see if anyone can drum up some answers to what they are.

If anyone here has any information on this I would love to hear it.

thank you
Corey Pritchard Stephen