The Great Lakes could help solve some ongoing US supply chain issues
A U.S. inland system of lakes could surprise many as it appears to hold some major possibilities when it comes to ways to help solve the ongoing supply chain issues plaguing the country amid growing inflation.
The U.S. Great Lakes are a handful of freshwater bodies that make up a system of lakes along the U.S.- Canada border that are connected to the Atlantic Ocean.
David Gutheil, chief commercial officer at the Port of Cleveland, said, “We’re getting a lot more calls from people, shippers, cargo owners, that typically wouldn’t want to consider using a smaller, inland port to move their cargo.”
The BBC reported that a Dutch shipping company decided to add an additional shipping vessel for its Antwerp, Belgium to Cleveland, Ohio route because of increased demand. And another ship last November traveled from Cleveland to Shanghai in China. The trip lasted 40 days and bypassed major ports in California.
A major waterway making it possible is the St. Lawrence Seaway, impressively stretching from the Atlantic Ocean into the Great Lakes. It moved 38.19 million metric tons of goods or cargo, delivering it to ports in Canada and the U.S. last year, and has maintained that as a yearly average, apart from dips during the height of the pandemic.
WXYZ Detroit
MacArthur Lock should reopen this week after unexpected repair
SAULT STE. MARIE, MI – An unexpected closure at the Soo Locks shipping complex is expected to wrap up this week, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The MacArthur Lock closed on Monday, July 25 for an unanticipated repair to its tainter gate valve machinery, forcing all shipping traffic to transit using the adjacent Poe Lock.
The bottleneck at the Poe Lock has caused some backups for ships moving between Lake Superior and Lake Huron using the Soo complex. Depending on their size, freighters have shared the 1,200-foot long by 100-foot wide Poe Lock with smaller boats, such as tour boats and patrol boats.
“They have been doing a good job of fitting as many ships as they can into the Poe,” said Carrie Fox, Soo Locks spokeswoman with the Army Corps Detroit District.
Read the full article at this link: https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2022/07/macarthur-lock-should-reopen-this-week-after-unexpected-repair.html
MLive
Clipper captain to celebrate 100th birthday aboard ship
MUSKEGON, MI – Docked in Muskegon Lake is a piece of history called the S.S. Milwaukee Clipper. The preserved steamship is a national historic landmark. It shut down back in 1970, but it still has a captain at its helm.
Believe it or not, that captain is 99 years old, and he still visits his beloved boat just about every day, and he’s about to celebrate a big milestone.
Captain Bob Priefer spent most of his life on the clipper. “24 hours, 7 days a week. When you’re the captain, you’re on watch all the time,” said Capt. Priefer.
“It’s just good genes, I guess. He comes down to the ship, I mean he has more energy than me sometimes. I’ll see him working up towards the bow and here I am out of breath I’m just doing a chore and he’s ready to walk around the ship again. I don’t know how he does it, but he does,” said Brock Johnson, volunteer coordinator at the S.S. Milwaukee Clipper.
Johnson is the captain’s apprentice if you will, the ship’s next generation. “All of us are getting a little bit tender, I don’t want to say aged,” said Priefer. But he won’t leave Brock to tend the ship before she imparts what he calls some old “fish tales.”
“Just walking through the rooms, he has those memories of what used to happen aboard the ship and we’re just happy that he has those memories, and one day I hope to have those memories as well,” said Johnson.
Priefer is a World War II veteran who started on the luxury vessel right after the war. Taking trips from Chicago to Muskegon and Milwaukee, at the time the boat was the equivalent of flying first class. “Back in the 40s to go from Milwaukee to Muskegon was like today’s taking a cruise to Hawaii,” said Priefer. He added, “we were the first commercial vessel to get radar.”
Not only did he spend much of his life aboard, he forged many family memories too, “my granddaughter, I married them aboard this ship. My granddaughter, and now I’ve got a great granddaughter, she was down here the other day.”
The almost-centenarian still somehow has a to do list aboard. “I would still like to do a lot of things on the ship. But the mind is willing, but the body is weak.” Before he gets going on all those tasks, his crew thinks birthday celebrations are in order first. “8-8-22. Next month I’ll be 100. I never thought of it as that. It’s just another day. I’m looking for 100, I’m looking for 110! Nobody in the family ever lived to be 100,” said Priefer.
We asked Priefer to sum up the days, the hours, the months’ worth of trips on the big lake and beyond, and he couldn’t quite calculate. But he did share this, “That doesn’t make any difference how many days, it’s how much you accomplish, what you did. We’ve done pretty well I think.”
You are invited to Captain Priefer’s 100th birthday party! It is Saturday August 6 from 6 to 9 aboard the ship. It’s completely free to come out and take a tour and give your captain some well wishes on his milestone celebration.
The S.S. Milwaukee Clipper is docked at 2098 Lakeshore Drive, Muskegon MI. For more information on the party: call 231-683-1590 or visit https://www.milwaukeeclipper.com/
Fox 17
