On October 14, 2001 Algoma Central Corporation renamed the Algowest to the Peter R. Cresswell. On Saturday, November 10, 2001, she made her first trip to Duluth, loaded with salt for the Hallett Dock in West Duluth. The boat was re-named to honor the former President and Chief Executive Officer of the company. He has just retired.

Although she is the flagship of the company, she has seldom been in the Twin Ports in recent years, although she has been here twice this year under her former name.

Photo by Andy LaBorde and www.boatnerd.com

Most every laker that comes to Duluth has received their mail, newspapers, magazines and other items from the J.W. Westcott II while transiting the Detroit River, an essential link in the St. Lawrence Seaway system. On Tuesday morning, October 23rd, she sank in the Detroit River while making a routine delivery to the tanker Sidsel Knutsen. In this case, she was bringing two pilots out, one to the Sidsel Knutsen, and one to another ship nearby. This is something that is done in Duluth every time a salty comes from the outside anchorage, or in fact, moves anywhere in the harbor. Both pilots were tossed overboard but later located by the crew of the tanker and rescued by a tug. Unfortunately, the Westcott's captain and deckhand have not been found, although the boat has been located lying on the bottom of the river.

There probably is not a boat as well known or appreciated as the Westcott was on all the Great Lakes. She was an important reminder to sailors of a normal life we take for granted, getting your mail and reading the newspaper.

The J. W. Westcott II was built in 1949. She is 46 feet long.

The Vancouverborg arrived in the Twin Ports Sunday evening, October 7, 2001. This is the western most point of her maiden voyage. Her hull was built in Rumania and then towed from there through the Black Sea, across the Mediterranean Sea and up the east coast of Europe to Delfzijl, The Netherlands, home port for Wagenborg Shipping. There the ship, as well as her sistership, the Virginiaborg, an exact copy, was assembled. Both ships are a little bigger than previous V-series ships. She can carry about 1,000 more tons of cargo.

She brought a cargo of dry salt that she will discharge at the Cutler salt dock in Superior. She will then move to the General Mills dock in Duluth to load beet pulp pellets for Spain.

Captain Koos Randsdorp, pictured, is making his second trip to Duluth. The first one was 20 years ago when he was here as a second mate. He has been with Wagenborg for 20 years and leads a crew of 11.

The Canadian vessel Windoc was struck by a lift bridge while transiting the Welland Canal Saturday evening, August 11, 2001. It was apparently descending too soon. The ship was burning most of the night and a second fire started up later Sunday. Seaway officials still hope to clear the canal for commerce by this evening. There were no deaths, most of the crew jumped off of the ship and were rescued. Here is a link to the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) site. The boatnerd also has information and pictures on their news link. Click here for information from Jeff Cameron's excellent site:Welland Canal site

The Westkap arrived in Duluth on Thursday morning, July 26, 2001 on her first visit to Duluth. She is a new ship, built in 2000, in Poland. A German company owns the ship.

Captain Tomasz Osinski commands a crew of 13, coming from Poland, Russia and Sri Lanka. Osinski lives in Szczecin, Poland, but the Westkap is doing a pretty good job of being home for him since he has his wife Lydia and their two boys, Filip, age 7 and Adam age 9, with him.

Outside the Westkap, a white cloud of bentonite covers the ship and those around it. Captain Osinski and his two sons (above), Filip, age 7 (sitting at the computer) and Adam, age 9, stay clean, inside the pilothouse of the ship. (When in port, the ships computer is a wonderful game machine)

After loading the bentonite, they moved over to the AGP terminal to load spring wheat. The Westkap will go first to Antwerp to discharge the wheat, and will then sail to Norway to drop the bentonite.

From the US Coast Guard Marine Safety Office Duluth, Minnesota (July 18, 2001, late afternoon) M/V CANADIAN OLYMPIC's ANCHOR REMOVED FROM DULUTH HARBOR ANCHORAGE AREA Marine Tech of Duluth removed the anchor that belongs to the M/V Canadian Olympic, which was lost by the vessel last week while trying to anchor in the anchorage area in Duluth Harbor. The vessel remains at Fraser Shipyard undergoing repairs to the shaft and propellers. (more)

The Radium Yellowknife, a tug barge combination, sits at the Hallett Dock waiting for weather to clear. She brings lumber from Thunder Bay about once a week.

There are a total of nine barges in the operation. At any one time, three barges are in Thunder Bay being loaded with lumber, three barges are in transit, either loaded to Duluth, or empty back to Thunder Bay. And there are three barges in Duluth being unloaded. Captain Roger Harrison (pictured), a distant kin to our 9th president, William Henry Harrison, runs this operation with a crew of 7. It takes 30 hours to go to Duluth, loaded, and 25 hours to reverse the trip, empty.

The barges are towed, not pushed. Pushing three barges on a river works;it doesn't work on Lake Superior. The barges are connected by one-inch cable, with about 26 feet between them while in transit. The first barge is usually about 1,200 feet behind the tug.

Stewart and Bergin are with the NDBC (National Data Buoy Center)

Tuesday afternoon: St. Clair is undergoing repairs at Fraser Shipyard. It is anticipated that she will be ready to load at Midwest Energy sometime on Wednesday.

Tuesday morning: Discharge completed around 8am. The St. Clair is at Fraser Shipyard undergoing inspection for possible problem with hull.

Monday Evening: (May 21, 2001) The St. Clair has a full load of coal and a problem with her hull. Solution: first discharge her cargo into the Indiana Harbor. The St. Clair, foreground, is discharging coal into the Indiana Harbor. The self-unloading boom on the Indiana Harbor is up only to get it out of the way.

Thursday evening, May 10, 2001, the Cason J. Callaway gets a tug assist as she makes her way from the Fraser Shipyard to the Murphy fuel dock, in preparation for sea trials on Friday. Below, she approaches the fuel dock.

At right, Tim Slattery, local photographer extraordinaire, reveals his secret for all those great shots he gets from water level. He is at water level, just another hard-working guy in a red boat Thursday night.

The Coast Guard Cutter Sundew is about finished breaking ice for the year. With clear water and ships sailing, it is time to do the real work of a buoy tender. Most buoys the Sundew tends are navigation buoys that mark the shipping lanes in our harbor and out in Lake Superior.

They also do some work for NOAA, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. NOAA has 68 weather buoys deployed around the world, most in waters from the western Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean around Hawaii, and from the Bering Sea to the South Pacific. They measure and transmit barometric pressure; wind direction and speed; air and sea temperature; and wave height. Even the direction of wave propagation is measured on many moored buoys.

While some navigation buoys stay in the water all year, weather buoys are taken up in the late fall and returned to their position after the ice departs in the spring. The Sundew will be leaving Monday, April 16, to return some weather buoys to their locations, floating in Lake Superior.

You see buoy number 45006 already loaded onto the deck of the Sundew, ready to go back to work. She will be returned to her proper location at 47.32 N 89.87 W (47°19'06"N 89°51'56"W). As everyone knows, that address is located just off the Apostles Islands.

Below, 45006 stands at attention with the other buoys that spent the winter in the Sundew's back yard.

The buoy has its own web page at: http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.phtml?$station=45006. Of course, as the page mentions, data from the buoy has not been available since early winter. The page says the buoy will be returned on April 9, so it will be only a little bit late. When it is again operational, you can go to the buoy's web page to find answers to questions that have nagged you for so long, such as the wave height in the Apostle Islands at 3 o'clock in the morning. Go here: http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/faq.shtml for lots of additional information about the buoy program. We will have pictures from the Sundew when she returns.

On Friday, March 16, the Sundew went out for the second time this season. The to-do list included clearing a path for the James R. Barker to carry the first cargo out of the port on Saturday. We also broke ice around each of the 14 ships that spent the winter here.

We opened up the DM&IR dock with about an hour of backing and ramming. That involved about ten attempts to break the ice from the middle of the channel into the loading dock. We would bore in as far as we could go, then back out to the channel and speed in again to challenge the icy St. Louis River. It gave up yards slowly, but surely, bowing to the inevitable spring, the icebreaker that will immediately follow the Sundew's effort. My job was to stay out of the way, and take pictures. I made the mistake of eating my lunch (shrimp scampi and crab, with a lovely cheesecake for dessert) while the Sundew was backing and ramming. The food was good but I had to chase it across my plate.

It was hard work, but the truth of the matter is: it is something every kid wants to do - get in a big machine and go around ramming things as hard as you can. Some people's dreams do come true.

Over at the Midwest Energy coal dock, the James R. Barker was preparing to take the first cargo out but ice behind the boat was causing some trouble. This was backing and ramming of an entirely different sort, much much slower, in fact, as slow as you can go without stopping. We came to within 5 feet of the dock trying to clear out the ice. The curve of the bow made the job particularly difficult since the business end (front) of the Sundew, the front hull at water level, could only get around 10 feet away from the dock.

After all this, plus a lot of doughnuts (breaking ice in a big circle) and figure-8's (self evident, I assume), which you can call, general ice breaking, we went to the Sundew's true calling. It is after all a buoy tender first. Luckily, there was a buoy that had strayed about 280 yards from its intended position. The buoy's job is to mark the edge of the ship channel, but it was now in the middle of the channel. Not a good place to be, but the ice flow around it had carried it, and its 9,000-pound cement anchor, out there. We (of course, I mean they) picked it up and put it on the buoy deck, lifted the anchor out of the water and carried it the 280 yards back to it rightful place where it was dropped back into its icy home.

I was tired. I had stood in cold, windy weather for over 6 hours. I haven't worked that hard in a long time. So, we returned to the dock to get warm, and ready for the next trip.