A Gaggle of Great Lakes Towing Tugs

 Across the river from where the Kaye Barker docked is where the Great Lakes Towing tugs call home in Detroit.

Detroit has gotten a couple of the new tugs.  I have a feeling they are going to replace all of them eventually.

I still like the looks of the old tugs.

These remind me too much of ocean tugs.

But they still look cool.

Three of the Great Lakes Towing Tugs

 As I was waiting at the Jefferson Avenue Bridge, the Great Lakes Towing tugboats for the area are kept here.  I decided to get some pictures of them.  I think I read somewhere that these tugs were not long for this world.  Looking at them, I could understand that.

First up was the Nebraska.  She was built in 1929.  It's amazing how much of these is under water.

Next up was the Wyoming.  She also was built in 1929.

Next up is the Ontario.  She was built in 1964 as the YTB 770 for the U.S. Navy.  In 2001, she became the Jeffrey McAllister.  In 2015, she was acquired by Great Lakes Towing and given her current name.

Great Lakes Towing Tugboats

During part of our tour of the Rouge River, we got to see where the Great Lakes Towing tugs were docked.

 These are tugboats that I have seen before but it's always nice to see them since I don't get to see that often.  The first tug we ran across was the Wyoming.  She was built in 1929 and is powered by a diesel engine.

 Next up was the Idaho.  She was built in 1931 and I believe is currently undergoing maintenance.

 Another view of the Idaho.

 The tug Superior.  She was built in 1912.

 She is kind of a neat looking tug.

And a shot of all three of them.

The Superior

I've seen the next tug before, but I don't think I've ever seen her in action.

That particular tug is the Superior.  She was built in 1912 as the Richard Fitzgerald.  In 1946, she was acquired by Great Lakes Towing and was given her current name.

Randomness on the River

This is where I put stuff that doesn't really have a home elsewhere.

 I was able to catch a business jet that was flying over.  I think this is a Cessna Citation but I'm not sure.

 At the end of Belle Isle, they were having sailboat races.

 I've seen these mosaics before and I think I've taken their pictures before.  This one reminds me of either a dinosaur or a turtle.

 Just some random tiles.

 Another sort of random one.

 This is either 30 or Bo.  I would like to think it is Bo for Bo Schembechler, but  I doubt it.

 This one kind of reminded me of a coyote head.

 There is still quite a bit of color on Belle Isle.

 Another tree on Belle Isle.

 I liked the Detroit skyline with the swans in the foreground and the forboding sky in the background.

 A Coast Guard boat heading somewhere.  I'm guessing it was heading to the Belle Isle station.

 The tug/barge Innovation but I forget the name of the tug pushing it.  It was unloading at the cement plant near Del Ray.

 The Great Lakes Tug Superior.  I've caught this one on the Rouge River before.  I thought she was going to assist the subject of my next post, but she was just going somewhere.

A shot of the Detroit skyline from another angle.

The Algosteel Passes By

While I was on the tour, I noticed that the Algosteel was starting to pass the ship.  Since I had the opportunity to take pictures of the ship, I took it.

 The Algosteel starts to approach the area.  Actually it provided a nice opportunity to see how far ships have come in the interceding years.

 The SS Meteor is 380 feet long, which is almost half as long as the Algosteel.  The Meteor could carry about 5,000 tons of cargo.  The Algosteel can carry a little over 5 times that amount.  The Algosteel uses diesel engines versus the steam engines of the Meteor.

 The Algosteel slowly passes by.

 The beam shot.

 She starts to pass out of view.

This was the last picture I had time for.

The SS Meteor Museum

Since there was little shipping traffic yesterday and it was my last day, I decided to head over to the SS Meteor for a tour.  The SS Meteor is an example of a whaleback ship and is the last surviving one.

 The whaleback was a designed created by Alexander McDougall who was a Scottish captain.  The design allowed for the maximum amount of cargo with a minimal amount of draft.  McDougall thought this would be a good thing for use on the Great Lakes.  The Meteor was one of the larger ones and because of design limitations, they couldn't be built larger.

 The Meteor was built by the American Barge Company of Superior, Wisconsin in 1896.  She was originally named the Frank Rockefeller because her company was bought by John Rockefeller and Frank was his brother.  She was number 36 of 44 whalebacks built by this company.  In 1900, she was sold to the Bessemer Steel Company and a year later, that fleet was bought by the Pittsburgh Steamship Company.  In 1927, she was sold as a sand barge and renamed the South Park.  She served in that role until 1933 when she was sold to be an auto carrier.  In 1942, she was converted to a tanker because of the war effort.  She sailed until 1969 when she ran aground.  Her owners decided not to repair her because she was a single hulled vessel.  In 1971, she was towed to her current location and she's served as a museum ship since.

This is a load marking.  It tells the safe draft for the vessel.  The S is for summer months and the W is for the Winter.

 A shot of her pilothouse.  This is about the only thing of the ship that doesn't seem much different than modern ships.

Looking down her hull.  She is in her last configuration.  I don't think she had this flat deck when she was first built.

One of her lifeboats.

A storage tank for fresh water.

A shot of her stack.

This is her chart room.  It was added in the 1920's.

This is a radio direction finder.  In the days before GPS, this was used to locate the ship.  Each lighthouse would send out a unique radio signal.  After locating the direction of three nearby lighthouses, the position of the ship could be plotted fairly accurately.

The view from the pilothouse.

The view of the pilothouse.  This wouldn't seem too out of place to a modern sailor.

In case of atomic attack.

The Captain's Quarters.  He had the most space of the crew.

The Captain's desk.  The machine to the right is a check embosser.

The officer's mess.  In rough seas, the crew would wet the table cloth and that would help the dishes from moving.

A shot of the oven.  The metal bars are there to keep the pans from moving in rough seas.

The crew's mess.  It's not quite as comfortable as the officer's mess but doesn't look that bad.

One of the crew's berthing spaces.  The crew was split into the different watches so that they would all be together.

There was a little airport nearby.

The gages for the engine.

A shot of the steam engine. 

A picture of a couple of whalebacks.