Wednesday, May 2, 2012

The William J Moore and McCleary's Spirit

As I said in the last post, I was down on the Detroit River again tonight.  I decided to try a different boatwatching spot because I wasn't quite sure how much time I would have before the ship I was waiting for.  As I was leaving the car, I saw the below ship coming upriver.  So I hurried up to get to a spot along the river.
 Turns out the vessel is the tugboat William J. Moore and the barge McCleary's Spirit.  The Moore was born at the Adelaide Shipyard in Australia.  She was known as the tug Warrawee-12/70.  I would imagine the 12/70 part was due to her commissioning in 1970.
 She was later resold and renamed the Seaspan Raider-76, then Raider-87 and the Alice A.
 At one time she was the largest highest horsepower tug in the Australian Fleet.
 In 2002, she was modified to her current configuration and mated with the McCleary's Spirit.  I presume it was around that time she got her current name.
And she heads off somewhere.

1 comment:

Isaac said...

Owned by K-Sea Canada, she was running on charter to Desgagnes until this winter. She was anchored in Hamilton looking for work until now. I don't know who she's running for.