So I saw that the Wilfred Sykes was coming to the Detroit area. And it turns out that was to the steel mill on the Rouge River. I figured that I had to catch her.
I wasn't able to catch her sooner but I was able to catch her as she passed the Fort Street bridge.
I decided to use my drone here because there isn't really a good spot to get pictures from the ground.
I was a nice enough day and it wasn't particularly windy. I think that made for some nice drone shots.
She was moving fairly slowly and I didn't notice until a little later that she had some tug assist.
I took the drone up to get an above shot.
And then I headed over to the Dix Avenue bridge to get my normal shots from there.
There was a handful of other people there. I was kind of surprised there weren't more since the last time the Sykes was around was in 2018.
It was nice to see her, especially since I haven't been able to catch up with her in Grand Haven much this year.
And I love catching ships on the Rouge River. It provides such a varied background.
I'd have to say that the Sykes is one of the nicest looking ships on the Lakes.
I tried to pull the camera back a little bit to get the reflection on the water.
She gets closer to the bridge. I think she was moving quite a bit slower than the other ships I have caught on the Rouge River. But then again, those ships travel up and down the Rouge quite a bit. This was the first time in three years for her and I think she had a different Captain then.
Anyway, she cuts a fine silhouette.
A shot of her pilothouse.
And her deckhouse.
A shot of her plimsoll line. I didn't think she was loaded because she was riding so high. It turns out that she was loaded.
One of her cargo holds was open and you could see the coke that she was carrying.
She starts to head for the slip.
A shot of her stack. Over the winter, Acelor Mittal was bought by Cleveland Cliffs, so now she is sporting that on her stack.
One of the boats on the deck.
One of the crew members enjoying a little time in the breezeway.
I didn't realize that the Sykes doesn't have stern thrusters, so she needed some tug assistance to get into the slip. That's another thing I don't usually see with the ships that come up here.
It was pretty cool to watch since I don't normally get to see tugboats doing their thing.
The tug pours it on to get her lined up with the slip.
The Sykes pours it on as she starts to back into the slip.
I think this is pretty cool.
The lighting for this was perfect.
She gets a little more help from the tug.
She is just about lined up.
I love this because I've wanted to see a ship pulling out of here and this is pretty close.
I think she is almost lined up here, so the tug can back off a little bit.
The tug moves over a little bit to shift position.
She moves amidships.
A couple more pushes from the tug.
And the tug leaves.
The Sykes then starts to back up into the slip.
I couldn't have asked for better lighting.
I think there was another spot I could go to but I decided not to.
One more picture before heading back to my car.
I kind of like how she is framed by the bushes.
After I got back to my car, I decided to take my drone for a spin. It was a little difficult because of the wires around but I managed to do it.
And as a result, I got some pretty nice pictures. I'm gonna have to try this again when there is another ship in there.
I thought that the Sykes was loading mill scale, so I thought she would be staying here for a while but she skipped out later in the evening.
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