Wednesday, December 31, 2014

My Last Ship of the Year - The Algosteel

I've been doing ships on this blog for a few years now.  So I try to make it a tradition to go out on New Years Eve so that I can catch my last ship of the year.  Because it is on New Years Eve, it is definitely my last ship of the year.
 And this year will be a first, as my last ship of the year also happened to be my first ship of the year.  Since I don't have the schedules memorized, this was completely by accident.  At least there wasn't the layer of ice like in those shots.
 The Algosteel is another classic Canadian Laker.  Based on the fact that her certificate has 3 more years left, she will probably last longer than the Algomarine but that is not certain either as Algoma has been using her as a salt boat in the winter.
 Salt is highly corrosive to the interior of the ship and doesn't help her long term survivability.  Fortunately, Algoma did some repairs to her, so she might actually last out her certificate.
 I seriously hope that she does because I would hate to see another ship scrapped.
 I was actually planning on following her to the Blue Water Bridge but she decided to stop at the fuel dock.  In this shot, she is doing about three knots.
 But that gave me the opportunity to get more shots than normal as my light was leaving me.
 A shot of her pilothouse.
 The beam shot.
 The nice pink skies.
 A shot of her stack.  As you can see, she has quite a bit of rust on her hull.  I'm hoping that she gets a little love when she does finally go for layup.
 The moon high above.
And she slips into the fuel dock.  And this was my last picture of the year.

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