Pathfinder and More of the James L. Kuber

Before I get started on the pictures, I wanted to let all of you know that I found a great link to a tracking service. It's found at Boatnerd.com. I have the link to the right in my favorite links list. Once you go to their website click on the map and it will show you where all the ships are at the present moment and if you roll over one of them it will tell you all about the ship and it's current destination.

First off, I got some better pictures of the James L. Kuber. The ones I took previously, the ship half-burried in fog. These are just on an overcast day.

Once again, the Kuber is 807 feet long, 70 feet at the beam, 28,560 tons of capacity, and a capacity per foot of draft of 1,272 tons. In some records it is also referred to as the Victory.

The Pathfinder was in port making a delivery of limestone (we think) at the same time as the Kuber.

Pathfinder (a.k.a. Dorothy Ann) is 699 feet in length, has a beam of 70 feet, can carry 23,800 tons per trip, and it takes 1,344 tons to add one foot of draft to the ships hull.

I caught a crew member passing on top near the conveyor arm.

Conveyor arm depositing it's load.

This is the reason we thought it was limestone they were delivering.

I learn something new everytime I go out to the docks it seems. I ran across this gentleman as I was walking under the bridge. He is a Machinist who works on the railroad cars. His job is to make sure the shoots of the cars open properly to dump their loads into the ore shoots on the dock which then are directed into the ships. He graciously answered my questions about his job and gave me a little extra insight into what it takes to keep this whole operation running.

That Day!

My mother (and partner on this project) and I started calling this "That Day" so that's what I named this post. It started out when we were heading out on our daily drive out the the Island. We were pulling up to the corner of Presque Isle Avenue and Wright Street heading East on Wright Street toward Lake Superior, when Mom noticed the top edges of the ship. As we came up the rise toward Lake Shore Dr. there was the Michipicoten directly in front of us. It seemed to be stopped right there at the end of Wright Street. At first it looked like it had been beached, but when we got to Lake Shore Dr. it was clear that it was waiting to dock.

The James R. Barker was already docked in the south side of the upper harbor dock and was in the process of unloading coal.

The James R. Barker is the biggest ship I've seen thus far, measuring 1000 feet in length with a beam of 105 feet. It can carry 67,475 tons per trip and can load 3,168 tons per foot of draft. It is owned by the Interlake Steamship Company/Lakes Shipping Co., Inc.

Close up of the coal delivery system using the ballast arm of the ship as a conveyor belt. (Or vise versa, it could be that the primary use of this arm is the conveyor belt and ship crews have found it useful as ballast as well. Or maybe it was designed to be used both ways. Engineers are way smarter than me! Right Christian?)

As Mom and I circled around the Island drive we got several more shots of the Michipicoten waiting to dock.

We got back to the beach on Lake Shore Dr. just in time to see what happened next.

I was watching the Michipicoten when Mom alerted me to the fact that the James R. Barker was moving out of the slip.

The Michipicoten started to move forward and for a time it looked like the two ships were going toward each other. I envisioned The Mountain having a fight with The Hound (if your a "Game of Thrones" fan you know what I'm talking about.) one of those "Who would win in a fight between Superman and the Hulk" arguments.

They got closer . . .

And closer . . .

Until finally they kissed!

After that you could tell that the Michipicoten was in front and the Barker was passing behind.

In this shot, as a reference point, you can see the light house at the end of the breakwater at Presque Isle.

Even though the James R. Barker has 370 feet of length on the Michipicoten, because the smaller ship was closer it ended up eclipsing the bigger ship.

This day seemed pretty exciting for me which is either a gauge of how big a geek I am or how boring life in Marquette is, I don't know which is true if either. I'm actually quite happy to be here taking care of my mother and getting some things accomplished that I didn't have time for in my real life down in Traverse City.

James L. Kuber

Here is proof of my dedication to this project. I go out in all weather to find the ships! There was a layer of low-lying fog on the lake this morning. It reminded me of some smoking horror movie that takes place on the moors in some English countryside.

The scaffold arm that is shown in this picture, I discovered, has two purposes. I mentioned before that it counterbalances the ship while it's loading, but it's primary purpose is a conveyor belt for unloading the ore. In other articles on this Blog I show ships that are unloading into the long yellow conveyor building on the south side of the Marquette and Ishpeming Upper Harbor dock. They are using this same scaffolding arm to convey the ore or coal up and into the shoot at the end of the yellow conveyor building and then the conveyor takes it across the road to the storage yards and shoot the coal out into the yard so that it doesn't build up too high in one area. This holding yard has an arm also the can redirect the coal to go to different areas of the yard. These ships and the machinery that surrounds them are truly self loading and unloading. Amazing!

The James L. Kuber, a.k.a. Victory, is 807 feet long, 70 feet at the beam, can carry 28,560 tons per trip and has a Capacity per foot of draft of 1,272 tons.

I headed over to the Island after photographing this ship close up to see if I could get rid of some of the haze. It wasn't haze it was fog and there was no avoiding it, but I did get this picture of the Kuber with it's arm up. You can tell how long the arm is in this photo. The entire front of the ship is cut off in this picture so you can't see the entire length. Truly an amazing ship!

Herbert C. Jackson

We just happen to see the Herbert C. Jackson docked in Lower Harbor on our way through town after driving up to Harvey. I stopped to take a few pictures while it unloaded coal.

The Herbert C. Jackson is 690 feet long, has a beam of 75 feet, and a per-trip carrying capacity of 27,776 tons. It's Capacity per foot of draft is 1,416 tons.

Lakes Contender/Ken Boothe, Sr.

This super long ship has two names, Lakes Contender and Ken Boothe, Sr. She belongs to the American Steamship Co. I saw her in Marquette's Upper Harbor port on June 3, 2014. Notice the lack of ice. The icebergs left sometime between June 1st and 3rd and have not been seen again since.

A clear picture of the bilge pump that also shows the two names. Lakes Contender is 845 feet in length, and has a beam of 78 feet. It's Per-Trip Carrying Capacity is 39,766 tons of ore. and it's Capacity per foot of Draft is 1,812 tons.

Addendum: My cousin Dan Liberty told me that this is one of the ships that is actually two ships. One is a steam tug boat style ship and the other is the ore carrier. That's why it has two names. They are linked together and the tug (Ken Boothe, Sr.) is the power source for the larger ship (Lakes Contender). Theoretically, they can separate like the saucer section of the Star Trek Enterprise "D", and the tug could pull another ship while the Lakes Contender stands by.

A close-up of the bow showing the name and the fact that it has not yet loaded due to the fact that it is sitting so high in the water.

The train engine hauls the train cars up onto the dock where they dump the ore pellets into the shoots which fold down to the holds on the ship. The big arm scaffold swings out and around to counter-balance the ship while the load is uneven so that the ship won't capsize. See the above photos of the scaffolding arm.

These are the pellets of Iron Ore that are loaded into the ships holds. I found them on the beach where they had been dredged out of the lake.

They are littering the beach adjacent to the docks where the dredging takes place.

John J. Boland

Photos of the John J. Boland were taken the same day as the previous post. Notice that on this side of the dock there are hardly any icebergs! This is a strange lake phenomenon having to do with predominant winds, lake tides, and the phases of the moon, I don't know. All I know is that the north side of the dock had a huge amount of trapped ice, and the southern side had very little. Also notice how close the ship is to the shore. I will talk more about the dredging later.

The John J. Boland is 680 feet in length, has a beam of 78 feet, and a per-trip capacity of 32,772 tons (All statistical info comes from the Lake Carrier's Association website. For a link to this great source of information on ships, see link list to the right.) The Capacity per foot of Draft is 1,584 tons. It is a ship belonging to the American Steamship Co.

Again notice how close the ship is to the shore. The bottom of the bay is dredged as needed to accommodate these huge ships.

The bridge is situated toward the aft of the ship. In order to see who is on the bridge I need to engage my zoom. I didn't actually catch anyone this particular day.

Proof that the ship is running empty. These are the depth marks for the Draft. The Draft refers to that portion of the ships hull from the water line to the bottom. For every 1,584 tons of ore that gets loaded into the Boland's holds, the ships hull will displace down one foot. That's what the Capacity per foot of draft means. Fully loaded the 32 foot mark may be the only one you can see above the waterline.

I'm not sure if this is a train worker, an iron worker, or a member of the ship's crew, but I spotted him walking up on top of the dock next to the trains that carry the ore out to the ships. Behind him you can see the size of the train car that carries the ore pellets.

Addendum: I have since found out that the men in the orange on top of the dock are all Railroad employees. They are the ones that keep the ore moving from the storage yards to the docks and keep the car shoots working properly. More on this in a future Blog.

More of these same workers. When I looked more closely at this photo I realized that there were two flags flying on the dock. The American Flag and the Canadian flag both fly on the dock since ships from both sides trade at this port.

I took this shot for two reasons, first to show the fence that prevents ship enthusiasts such as myself from climbing up onto the dock from the beach, and second to show the little tiny rope that is keeping the ship from listing out away from the dock. Seems like it could snap like a thread given a little more urging from Newton's forces!

H. Lee White

These were taken on May 30, 2014 at Marquette Upper Harbor Ore Dock. Note the ice on Lake Superior! Even for the coldest lake in the world, this is unusual.

It was raining this day, which you can tell because I had some drops on my lens.

The H. Lee White, which can only access Lake Superior through the Poe Lock at the Soo, is 704 feet long, has a beam of 78 feet and has a Per-trip Capacity of 34,247 tons of cargo. It is owned by the American Steamship Co. The Capacity per foot of Draft is 1,644 tons. (For an explanation of this see the sidebar.)

Using my zoom lens again, I managed to capture two crew members on the bridge.

Good job guys!

This is all loose ice that the hull of the ship can easily nudge aside. We call them icebergs but don't worry. These are baby ones. Don't conjure up visions of Kate and Leo clinging to a piece of wood in the North Atlantic; Gales of November don't apply here.