Friday, October 7, 2011

The H. Lee White

It was a nice day out today, so I decided to take a half day off since I have quite a bit of vacation time which is sitting around and doing nothing. I haven't had many opportunities to go boatwatching so I decided to go down to the Detroit River.

As I was parking, I saw this ship coming upriver, so I hurried up and got out of my car in time to take some pictures as it was approaching the Ambassador Bridge. It turns out that she is a ship that hasn't appeared on this blog before.
The H. Lee White was built by the Bay Shipbuilding Company in Sturgeon Bay, WI for the American Steamship Company. Construction on her began in 1973 and she had her maiden voyage in 1974.She is powered by twin 3600 Horsepower Engines and is equipped with both bow and stern thrusters. Like many ships that ply the Great Lakes, she has a self-unloader.At 704 feet long, she is one of a few vessels that can go through the Welland Canal. She can carry a little over 35,000 tons of cargo.She has had many accidents, one of which was with the Grosse Ile Bridge in 1992. It knocked the Bridge out until 1993 but it was later determined that the bridge keeper was at fault. The ship was not damaged though.Here the J.W. Westcott is leaving her.
And she heads upriver somewhere.

No comments: