Today is the anniversary.
On another note I toured The Joseph L. Block for work as it’s a self unloading model with all kinds of conveyor belts and rubber seals. The machine shop and engine are quite impressive You can only do this when it comes in to Manitowoc for the winter.
Any fans of big freighters?
I enjoy the song.
I've sailed on all the lakes except Superior. Got on a ship in Milwaukee and got off it in Newport News.
We try to go up to The Soo every year for the 4th of July. We stay at the Lockview Motel right across the street for the locks and just watch the ships get raised and lowered all day on the third, and then watch the most small town version of a parade on the 4th.
I've fished four of the five Great Lakes, but never seen Superior. Hope to some day.
An ancestor of mine came from Scotland to captain the last wooden hulled sailing ship to haul freight on the Great Lakes.
In reply to Floating Doc :
I went fishing in Superior with my dad when I was in junior high. Sicker than a dog.
I share a last name with that ship.
Kind of related...We used to take the William G. Mather ship tours as kids with the family...loved it as a kid!
Went on one as an adult too...even more enjoyable!
There's the USS Cod right down the way on Lake Erie too...that was even more fun to tour!
Side note, Great Lakes Brewing Co. makes a great porter named after the EF.
I clicked on this just to see if it was about the beer or the ship.
Gordon Lightfoot sings about the Gales of November. I call these salty dogs the Gals of November.
These pics taken last weekend after the end of The Annual Peele Island Challenge. The Challenge is always in November. It started over 15 years ago as just the required day to move the boat about 15 miles down the shore to the marina that will haul the 35ft boat out of the water for the winter. Instead of taking the direct route, this final sail of the year detours about 30 miles north and 30 miles back south rounding Peele Island in Canadian water of Lake Erie.
Start time of this trip is always 7am. In years past there have been times where air temp equaled wind speed; 22 degrees and 22 kts of wind speed. That's damn cold...and damn crazy.
Speaking of Lake Superior... There is a sailboat race called the Trans-Superior; Duluth to Sault Ste. Marie. Always held in Aug since it is the warmest month of the year.
I have never done that race but everything I've ever read or been told about the race is that, "it's the coldest I've ever been in my life!"
The overnights, unable to see land, incomplete darkness, in 50 degree water is supposedly a whole different level of cold.
My wife (to be at the time) flew out to Kenai to get on an old rust bucket oil tanker with me. Next stop was Valdez. Between Kenai and Valdez, under ballast, Gulf of Alaska, berkeleying winter, weather conditions were normal. That is, berkeleying horrible. My cabin was, of course, right behind the radio room, which was right behind the bridge. The wind in the wires was very prominent. We were rolling pretty good on that rust bucket, no keel, smooth bottom T5 tanker, and I put the GL cassette on with The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald.
In the early 1980s I was a seaman on the USCGC Acacia. We tended all the lighthouses and buoys on Lake Michigan, broke ice, occasional SAR, and some fun stuff like escorting the Chicago to Macinac sailboat race. I learned that working on the Lakes is serious business. Our 180' long ship rolled about 60 degrees on a rouge wave causing our cargo boom to rip free of it's stays and wrap around the side of the ship. Diffraction off the shorelines and the long open axis to the north make for some big waves when the weather turns.
The Coldest I have EVER been was when I went in the water as a swimmer to recover a weather buoy that had broke loose in a storm. I had to secure a line to it, so we could hoist it out. I could see my arms and hands to move them, but could not feel anything - try bolting a clevis like that, rolling on eight foot swells.
In reply to AAZCD :
In the early 80's, I was on the Keystone State, T-ACS-1, from Milwaukee on out, and we were the only (commercial) vessel to make it through the ice. It was almost Spring. A USCG ice breaker was in front of us busting it up so we could get to the locks. We almost didn't make it, as we lost the plant right in front of the locks. There was so much ice that we didn't have enough water intake to cool the plant. If I recall, there were 2 or 3 vessels behind us, and they didn't make it out.
We watch freighters from the front porch of our cottage on lake Michigan. We're not on the route that the big boats take, but it's still neat.
When I went to Michigan Tech, every now and again you'd wake up in the morning and there would be a massive freighter sitting right in front of the school in the Portage waterway doing a practice safe harbor run.
If you ever get a chance to go to the shipwreck museum at Whitefish Point, do it, it's neat.
That is the best song to pick if you want to ruin a kareoke night. Not every place I’ve been drug to has it but in the ones that do the DJs are usually unfamiliar with it and regret letting it happen about 1/3 of the way in. I’ve never been allowed to finish it.
Wally said:That is the best song to pick if you want to ruin a kareoke night. Not every place I’ve been drug to has it but in the ones that do the DJs are usually unfamiliar with it and regret letting it happen about 1/3 of the way in. I’ve never been allowed to finish it.
You, Sir, are a glorious prick.
In reply to Wally :
You, sir, are a genius. I would love to sing karaoke with you one day.
Wally said:That is the best song to pick if you want to ruin a kareoke night. Not every place I’ve been drug to has it but in the ones that do the DJs are usually unfamiliar with it and regret letting it happen about 1/3 of the way in. I’ve never been allowed to finish it.
In reply to AAZCD :
Hey fellow Coastie! I'm a plank owner of an 87' cutter as an SN.
in the land of dreary steeples the tune has been affixed to a political cause. I was once told of a typical week long summer vacation in ol' Espanol by some yahoos singing the modified version at a bar. I've berkeleying hated the tune ever since. Then I came to the new world and worked in an Irish bar where I had to listen to it incessantly. I forever rue the day that berkeleying ship went down. Why is there no wreck of the Exxon Valdez? Garrrgghhh!!!!
In reply to RealMiniNoMore :
I had not heard that version. When clicking the link I was expecting Pete and Wayne's version, The Rectum of Ella Fitzgerald.
I'll leave you to Google up your own link.
Javelin said:In reply to AAZCD :
Hey fellow Coastie! I'm a plank owner of an 87' cutter as an SN.
Hello and thank you for your service. I served in the USCG for a little over four years. Those four years were a lifetime of experience. At the time, all the old boatswain's mates I knew were divorced and drank too much. Seeking a different fate, I transitioned to the Army to become a Warrant Officer pilot ...where I drank heavily and got divorced.
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