Icebreakers bound for Lake Superior, will head through Soo Locks on Monday
Duluth, MN – The Soo Locks will open sooner than expected this month, allowing a team of mostly U.S. Coast Guard vessels to establish a commercial shipping track on Lake Superior in time for the March 25 season opener.
The ice situation is formidable on Lake Superior, the Duluth Seaway Port Authority said in a news release Wednesday, citing internal Coast Guard reports.
The lake is presently 80% ice-covered, or “above-normal ice concentration” by Coast Guard officials, who note that some of this ice plate is up to 5 feet in thickness. In and near the Port of Duluth-Superior, ice thickness is reported to be 24-30 inches.
Ice is deteriorating rapidly on the lower Great Lakes and through the St. Lawrence Seaway, freeing ice-breaking assets to return to Lake Superior, which has gone without a Coast Guard ice breaker this winter since the recommissioning of the cutter Alder from Duluth to the West Coast Bay Area last summer.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will allow early passage through the Soo Locks to several Coast Guard vessels on Monday to begin spring breakout preparations.
The Coast Guard is planning to dispatch the Canadian cutter Samuel Risley, and its own heavy ice breaker Mackinaw through the Soo Locks, followed by the 225-foot Hollyhock and one of the Coast Guard’s 140-foot cutters, either Neah Bay or Morro Bay, to begin ice-breaking operations in Lake Superior.
“Led by Mackinaw, these vessels will establish a shipping track through Whitefish Bay and eastern Lake Superior,” the Port Authority said.
Hollyhock and the other 140-foot cutter will proceed to the Port of Duluth-Superior to begin ice-breaking operations in and around the port. Hollyhock will remain in Duluth-Superior to maintain a track and facilitate initial shipping movements.
The other cutter will sail up the North Shore to break ice in Two Harbors and Silver Bay, possibly proceeding to Thunder Bay, Ontario, and then east to support track maintenance in Whitefish Bay. The Risley will tackle initial ice-breaking duties in Thunder Bay, and then return to the eastern end of Lake Superior.
“Coast Guard officials expect the warmer weather to aid in ice deterioration,” the Port Authority said, “but they predict initially challenging ice and navigation conditions particularly in eastern Lake Superior, where deteriorating ice tends to stack upon itself.”
Duluth News Tribune
Welland Canal opening ceremony set for March 24
The 64th navigation season of the St. Lawrence Seaway will be officially launched at 10 a.m. on March 24. To mark the passage of the first ship of the year through the Welland Canal in St. Catharines, the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation will hold an event that will bring together dignitaries from the Canadian government, as well as representatives from both the Canadian and American corporations.
This will be an opportunity for the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation to share its views for 2022 and explain the Seaway’s role in Canada’s economic recovery and in the global supply chain. An impressive artwork will be unveiled on the Trillium Class bulk carrier CSL Welland, the first ship to transit through the Welland Canal.
Among those on hand will be Terence Bowles, President and Chief Executive Officer, The St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation; Craig Middlebrook, Deputy Administrator, The Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation (United States) and Louis Martel, President and Chief Executive Officer, CSL Group.
Thunder Bay shipyard kept busy during winter
Thunder Bay, ON – The long winter is slowly coming to an end and so is the work being done on many ships that are wintering in the Thunder Bay port.
At Heddle Shipyard, the Algoma Central Corporation Tim S. Dool is undergoing maintenance and structural work while the M.S. Chi-Cheemaun, which is operated by Owen Sound Corporation, has been undergoing its five-year maintenance protocol.
The Chi-Cheemaun is the operation’s largest passenger and vehicle ferry that sails from Tobermory, Ont., to the Manitou Islands. Heddle welcomed the contract.
“It was due for its five-year regularly scheduled drydocking and when it came up on an open tender, we out-bid it and we were fortunate enough to win it, and shortly thereafter it made its way up to the Thunder Bay shipyard,” said Ted Kirkpatrick, Heddle’s director of business. “There’s lots of things that need to be done. They check the shafts and the props and they check the valves and things like that and they go through all the regular survey to keep it going for the next five years.”
In the early morning Sunday, a fire broke out in the boiler room on the ship. Heddle staff used fire extinguishers to knock down the blaze and Thunder Bay fire crews arrived to extinguish it. The ship’s boiler room, the boiler and its electrical system suffered damage. Light smoke was quickly cleared by the ship’s ventilator system.
Robert MacDonald, the Chi-Cheemaun’s third engineer, says everything is “OK. It’s just some light damage but we’ll have everything ready to go for May 6,” he said, of the anticipated departure date for the ship.
“There’s no sustainable damage. Inside everything is going well and there’s just a few more things to be touched up. When the ice leaves we’ll be able to make it back home for a startup date.”
He called the Chi-Cheemaun “quite charismatic” and said people like to see it because of its pretty colors. “People come back year after year, and they’ll be glad to get it back in Tobermory for the 2022 season.”
MacDonald, who has been a worker on the ship for 35 years, is on his third visit to the Heddle shipyard and says they have been accommodating.
Long-term plans to fabricate ship components at Heddle’s Thunder Bay plant, particularly for the Sea-Span Polar icebreaker build taking place in Victoria, B.C., is a work in progress.
During the summer of 2021, Heddle Shipyards purchased Fabmar Metals and has been working to move their equipment onto the shipyard campus as part of their plan. At the same time, the federal government moved forward with construction plans for two Canadian Coast Guard Polar icebreakers under the National Shipping Strategy. One of these vessels is being built in Victoria.
“The plan was to start fairly soon after we purchased (Fabmar) but then we won the Chi-Cheemaun contract and we kind of went through all our resources,” he said. “Now we’re into winter works, so moving of the major machinery pieces hasn’t happened yet, but some things are slowly migrating their way down to the shipyard but we haven’t done the full move yet.”
Kirkpatrick said Fabmar Metals has operated in Thunder Bay for more than 30 years, and called the merger “very timely. “Almost every time we’ve had a project in Thunder Bay, we would bring Fabmar in to support us,” he said.
“So we’ve worked with them for as long as we’ve had the shipyard there since 2016. We talked about doing this and we were finally able to make it happen. So it was actually really great for us.”
Meanwhile, some ship modules for the Sea Span icebreaker have been built at Heddle’s Hamilton base and at their Newfoundland base and shipped via truck to Sea Span in Victoria.
Kirkpatrick says the COVID-19 pandemic “played games” with them all in this whole process and a disruption in the supply chain made it difficult at times to get the parts that they needed. “And the price of some things has gone up drastically,” he added. “Those have probably been the biggest challenges.”
Heddle doesn’t anticipate material shortages or costs having any impact on the schedule or projects, but it just makes things a little more challenging to manage.
Chronicle-Journal
USCG to open St. Marys RIver Pipe Island channel
Coast Guard icebreakers will open the Pipe Island Channel, north and east of Pipe Island, on the St. Marys River, starting at 1200 local time on Sunday, March 20. The icebreakers will fracture and flush the existing field of ice to open the up bound channel of the St. Marys River, to the north and east of Pipe Island. Conducting this and other preparatory icebreaking is done to facilitate the opening of the Sault Locks. The midnight March 25th opening of the locks signals the start of the Great Lakes commercial shipping season.
Issues between Keewatin owner and investment company to keep museum ship closed in 2022
Editor’s Note: The following information was released by Friends of Keewatin.
Port McNicoll, ON – Skyline Investments Inc., owner of the 114-year-old S.S. Keewatin, has refused to discuss re-opening the ship for a 2022 season with Friends of Keewatin – the volunteer organization which restored and has operated her as an historical attraction since 2012 – according to the president of the charity, Wayne Coombes.
“This means Keewatin will be closed for a third season in a row,” said Coombes. “After struggling to self-fund and execute repairs over seven long years to bring her to near fully restored condition, having to stand outside and watch her deteriorate is hard to take. And we know she has been deteriorating since Skyline assumed direct custody: the repair to the top deck at the bow was interrupted when Skyline locked us out 18 months ago.”
“The word ‘disappointed’ doesn’t come anywhere near describing how we feel,” said Coombes. “For me ‘betrayed’ is more accurate. Skyline returned Keewatin to Port McNicoll promising to donate her to the community. Based on that promise volunteers contributed an estimated 100,000 hours to restore her and operate her to pay for that restoration. But now Skyline has changed its management, reneged on its promises, locked us out, and intends to gift her to a different recipient.”
Coombes bristles at the suggestion that it was the charity’s failure to secure Category B designation that led to this situation. “The offer to donate Keewatin to the community wasn’t presented as ‘conditional’ and the volunteer contribution couldn’t be,” said Coombes. “Skyline created the charity, controlled its board through the 2018 season, and controlled its management through the summer of 2020. Skyline’s lawyers handled the application and Skyline refused to provide the financial backing it knew would be required for the charity to attain designation for the ship, despite seeking a multimillion-dollar windfall. Any ‘failure’ was Skyline’s.”
The Museum of the Great Lakes at Kingston has announced they’ve been conditionally awarded Category B designation for Keewatin by Canadian Heritage back in December,” said Coombes. “That’s no surprise: they’re a fine organization and Keewatin is an amazing artifact. I understand they still have several hurdles to cross. Ultimately both organizations want the best for Keewatin. She sure isn’t getting that now!”
