Quote:
| Originally Posted by alloyed2sea Hooray! You made it.
Now regale us with some stories of "heavy weather" on the Great Lakes. 
Cheers!
Eric |
Thanks for the pictures Eric. The first one is the Enders M. Vorhees up bound just past Lock 8 in the Welland Canal. The second is with Lansing shoal light in the forground, and the third is the Enders M. Vorhees down bound just past the Blue Water Bridge that links Port Huron, Michigan with Sarnia, Ontario in the St. Claire River. Note the small amount of ice that has formed on the side of the ship from water spray. Not much, but this may have been in November. By the way, just forward, and to port of the bow in the last picture is where they use to build metal hulled boats in Canada.
T'was the night before Christmas, and all through the boat, not a rat was aboard her, and no other near afloat. Her name was the Enders M. Vorhees, an ore carrier with 26,000 tons of taconite ore pellets aboard in her cargo holds. Built in 1942 she was 629 feet long with a coal burning steam engine that had recently been turn to oil burning, and she was down bound on Lake Michigan after passing underneath the Mackinaw Bridge early in the day. Winds were light in the straights from the SW, and picking up more, and more as she approached Lansing Shoal Light, and the Captain, Harold "Hell's Fire" Beagle, told the oncoming watch to keep a weather eye out, and get the MAFOR, and LAWEB weather reports to him as soon as they were broadcast.
No sooner had she made the turn down bound at Lansing Shoal Light than the temperature dropped to below Zero F., and the winds began to howl through the standing rigging. Wave heights began to incress from 3 ft.-6ft. in less than a half an hour, then built from there as the wind went SSW at 25-35 knts. The bow of the ship, a blunt round nose as is normal for this size vessel on the Great Lakes, began to make spray. And the spray began to freezed along the sides and forward topside decks right away.
It was darker than a coal miner's arse when the first mate took the MAFOR weather report down to the Capt's Cabin around 1700. And after looking at it ole "Hell's Fire" Beagle said:
"Keep her going, but hug the westerly shore line all the way down. We won't get much lee for this gale, but I see no reason as yet to slow her down, or go to anchor, do you, Robert."
Now you have to understand that the first mate, the most senior mate aboard, and high on the seniority list with US Steel, could hardly argue with the captain's decision as he was close to getting his own boat in the next couple of years if he kept his nose clean with the captains that he served, and until then was assured his own boat. And it is a well known fact amongst Steel Trust Sailors that their Captains never went to anchor unless directed to by the Coast Guard, or a company big wig. And they rarely if ever slowed the ship down for weather because it would cut into their Tonnage Bonuses for the year. So it wasn't a question, it was more like a statement of fact by the captain.
"No sir," the first mate replied.
"Good, just have the third mate bring me the LAWEB then, and to keep 5 miles off the shore line."
"Aye Sir."
By 1800 there was a fine sheen of ice encrusting the entire forward end of the ship as far back as cargo hatch number 2, and the window defrosters in the pilot house were just barely keeping up. The radar had been turned on specifically so that its antenea wouldn't freeze solid in one position, and the RDF antenea was turned ever five minutes or so for the same reason by the watchman who took turns with the wheel'sman in salting, and sanding down the decks, and ladders leading up to the pilot house from the main deck. By 2000 there was an inch of ice covering everything forward of hatch number 2.
A laker, as ore carriers plying the Great Lakes are known as, is made for the short chopping sea action that is typical of all of the Great Lakes. So that any laker over 600 ft. moves like a catipilar along the tops of the waves. The middle of these vessels actually can work vertically 6-8ft. up, and down during gales and storms out there depending on the distance between these waves. And by 2100 that Christmas Eve the wave heights were 15 ft. and building with 30 feet betwen wave crests, and stretching as the winds built up to 45 kts. and gusting to 55 kts.
Now as I had been in the Navy just before joining this ship, and having been in more than my share of typhoons on different sized vessels I was well aware of water tight integrity aboard ships. So I thought nothing of when the ship started bouncing around, and flexing as she worked her way down bound in the gale that would soon become a full blown winter storm. In fact looking around at my new shipmates over dinner it was hard not to burst out laughing at the concern that etched into their faces over a little bump, and grind, and most of them where two, and three times my age, and well experianced professional seaman at that.
"Ole "Hell's Fire" is at it again," said Johnny Johnson the 4 to 8 wheelsman. "Got his whole cabin duct taped, and ready to go."
"Just don't tell me that he's been into the Blackberry Brandy," said Harold Hurlburt the 4-8 watchman.
"Naw, he never drinks past September," Johnny chuckled.
"So he's just naturally crazy?" Harold inquired.
"Not crazy," Johnny replied, "just more experianced in weather than most is all.
"Then why are we out in the middle of the worst storm of the year, again?" The chief steward barged into the conversation by way of handing me my plate of food.
"If he thinks she'll handle it, then she'll handle it." Johnny shrugged.
"Yeah, well this ain't no f*cking destroyer bub!"
I should have asked what the cook meant by that last statement, but I was just too young, and too happy to be making a living at my chosen profession I guess.
"And she ain't no spring chicken either," the chief steward continued, "she's already got stretchmarks on her from last year's storms."
Now I knew a little something about stretchmarks. That's when the hull works so much in a sea that the steel acquires little stretch cracks that look like miniature lightening bolts in the side, or the decks themselves. These stretchmarks can leak water into the boat if they go through the entire plating. Which is why boats go through an X-ray process every 5 years to see if any have developed, and to immediately repair them. And yes, steel does stretch, but it isn't a rubberband by any sense of the word. Heat makes it expand, and cold makes it shrink. But as I said Lakers are made for the Great Lakes. They don't have a ridged keel like Salt Water Vessels do for that very reason. However they do have separate ballast tanks that act as a double hull, and you actually walk over the top of these tanks in a long horizontal tunnel that runs the length of the cargo holds from the forward end to the after end so that those aboard can keep out of the weather. Crew are billeted usually at both ends of the ship, but there is only one galley, so all of those in the deck department who live forward use these tunnels to go and eat in the messroom that is in the after end. At each end of this tunnel is a water tight door, but there is nothing between each of these two doors other than open space, the walls, the deck, and the hull, and inner hull for bulheads.
Every door, and hatch on these vessels is water tight, but when I started to think about what the cook had just said I remembered that not every hatch opening had a water tight hatch to it, or for that matter any kind of hatch in some cases. And this was as much true forward, as it was in the after compartments. But still, I had been with some of the finest skippers in the Navy, and there was nothing at that moment that made me believe that our captain was any less knowledgeable, or experianced for the job that he did. So I went to sleep as assured as I had been before the evening meal.