Thursday, October 8, 2020

And the Honorable James L. Oberstar

The next ship up was kind of a surprise.  When I looked at AIS, I saw that there was a ship leaving the Rouge River and then I saw this ship coming up the Detroit River.  I thought that the ship leaving the Rouge River would be passing Belle Isle and that would have been cool because that ship would have been the Herbert C. Jackson.  It turns out that the Jackson would be heading south to Toledo.

When I first saw this ship on AIS, it was possible that she would ending up stopping at Mistersky for fuel.  It seems like many of the upbound ships have done just that.
Well, she didn't stop for fuel, so I knew it wouldn't be too long before I saw her.  In fact, I got a glimpse of her on my drone as I was taking the early pictures of the Kaye E. Barker.  She was a little dot in that picture though.
I'm not sure where she was heading but I think she was heading up to Marquette.
If she was heading up to Marquette, she would be picking up a load of taconite for either Cleveland or Dearborn.  I think it is the Cort that typically delivers taconite to the Indiana ports.
As stated before taconite is refined iron ore.  Much of the iron ore that is left is about 20 to 40% pure.  Most of the pure iron ore was mined already.  This forces the mining companies to process the ore before shipping.  However, that leads to advantage of having consistent loading.
And then I switched to my drone.
I'll have to say that the ships with the scrubbers installed look even better from the air.
With the steam rising from the stack, it looks like a proper steamship.
I pulled the drone to the side so that I could get the beam shot.  This is the almost beam shot.
And the beam shot.  The drone is roughly amidship right now.
And then she passes.  It doesn't take long.
you can see her wake patterns.
The long trail of steam coming off the back.
One more shot from the drone.
And then I switched to my other camera.  I liked the color in the sky.
One more shot and then she was off.




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