And Now for Something Completely Different...the Salarium

It's getting rarer and rarer that I see ships that I haven't seen before.  One of my friends told me that the Salarium was heading downbound at Port Huron, so I headed there to catch her.  She's been on the Great Lakes on and off for a while.

 The Salarium began her life as the Nanticoke in 1979 at the Collingwood Shipyards.  She was strengthened to be used in ocean service.

 She has an overall length of 730' and can carry a little over 35,000 tons of cargo.

 In 1997, she was involved in a project called the "Hibernia Challenge" with sister ships the Atlantic Huron and Atlantic Erie.  This was a project where magnetite ore was delivered to an offshore drilling rig to be used as ballast.  This was never undertaken before and the project was a success.

 In 2009, she was renamed the Salarium and chartered to Societe Quebecoise D'Exploration Miniere.  She was named Salarium because she is now mostly involved in the salt trade.  Salarium is the Latin origin for the word salary.  One of the word roots for Salarium is sal which is Latin for salt.  Evidently, Roman soldiers may have been partially paid with salt.

 I think that is a pretty cool name for a ship at anyrate.  It would be like naming a ship Calcite or Taconite.

 A shot of her pilothouse and stern.

 A closer shot of her pilothouse.

 And closer yet.

 A shot of her bow as she pulls away.

 One more shot of her pilothouse.

And rear.