The Mighty Paul R. Tregurtha

I was thinking of heading down to Bellevue, Ohio today.  One of these days, I would like to see the Nickel Plate Railroad Museum there.  However, I took a look at AIS this morning and I saw that there would be a handful of ships moving on the St. Clair River today.

 The first of those ships was the Paul R. Tregurtha.  I'm not sure where she was heading from but she is heading back up to Superior, Wisconsin.  I am guessing that she will pick up another load of coal there and head back down.

 I will have to admit, it is pretty impressive see something this massive moving past you.

 This is what 1013.5 feet looks like.  If you put her on end, she would still be taller than the Renaissance Center.

 A shot of her pilothouse.  Her pilothouse alone is a 5 story building.  That dwarfs many of the buildings in the towns that she passes.

 I headed up to the shadow of the Blue Water Bridge for my next series of shots.  This is probably one of my favorite spots to take ship pictures.

 And this is what 105 feet looks like.  We are lucky that it was the MacArthur Lock that failed and not the Poe Lock.  If the Poe Lock ever fails, these ships will not be able to move between the Lakes and when you consider that this one is carrying roughly eight trains worth of cargo, you can only imagine what it would be like to replace 13 of them.

 A shot of the Tregurtha as she starts to pass.

 And she passes under the Blue Water Bridge. 

 A shot of her pilothouse.

And she continues on her way to Lake Huron.  Roughly 19 hours after this picture was taken, she will be passing DeTour Passage.  Six hours past that, she will be clearing the Soo Locks.  About an hour and half after that, she will be passing Point Iroquois.  In 22 hours (or so) after that, she will be passing under the Lift Bridge in Duluth and onto Superior.