Re: Maritimers?

From: Richard Jenkins
Location: Boston, MA
Email: cuyahogaatboatnerd.com
Remote Name: 205.158.43.222
Date: 09/30/03
Time: 12:06:58 PM

Comments

That's a very good explanation of the Maritimers there Nathan. I do have a couple of minor additions and corrections though. The Maritimers were not particularly fast boats. They had 2500 horsepower, compared with around 2000 for the average 600-footer and 4000 for the Supers. The Supers were built with steam turbines ordered before the war, but reciprocating engines (which were pretty much obsolete by that time) were chosen for the Maritmers because they were cheaper and easier to build, the same reason why the mass-produced ocean-going Liberty Ships were also built with 2500 horsepower triples. When the Maritimers were traded out to the various fleets in exchange for older vessels, the boats that were traded in remained in service for the duration of the war, and were turned over to the Maritime Commission for disposal at the war's end. The CTC #1 was always a straight-decker before she became a cement storage barge. She was originally the Frank Purnell, but was actually built as the McIntyre. Like most of the Maritimers, she was named by the Maritime Commission at lauching, but renamed before entering service for her new owners, in her case the Interlake Steamship Company. In 1966 the Purnell was traded to Bethlehem Steel in exchange for their Steelton, another Maritimer. The Frank Purnell was renamed Steelton and remained a straight-decker under Bethlehem ownership, while the original Steelton was renamed Frank Purnell and converted to a self-unloader for Interlake. The reason for the swap was that the original Frank Purnell had received new tank tops only a couple of years before, work that would have been undone if she had been converted to a self-unloader at the time. The self-unloading Frank Purnell was later sold to Oglebay Norton and renamed Robert C. Norton. She was sold for scrap in 1994 after spending many years laid up in Toledo. The Willowglen, the last Maritimer in essentially unaltered configuration (original steam engine, straight decker), was in active service until 1992. In 1994 she was sold to Goderich Elevators for use as a storage barge there. In addition to being the last true straight-deck Maritimer (the CTC#1 resembles a straight-decker apart from the cement unloading rig behind her forward cabins), the Willowglen is also the last surviving vessel from the former Soo River fleet, and soon to be the last survivor of the P&H fleet as well, after the Oakglen departs on her one-way trip to India later this month. The Cuyahoga ran with her old Lentz double compound engine through the 1999 season, and entered winter layup in early January of 2000. At the time she was the last true "up-and-downer" in service on the Great Lakes. (That is to say, the last one with the classic exposed cranks and connecting rods - there are still three vessels in service with closed-crankcase Uniflow engines.) Over the winter the venerable old engine was scrapped and replaced with a new Caterpillar diesel, ending an era on the Great Lakes.