CSL Niagara Makes a Brutal Arrival, Coming in Fresh from Refit and Freed from the Ice скачать в хорошем качестве

CSL Niagara Makes a Brutal Arrival, Coming in Fresh from Refit and Freed from the Ice

Take a good look, it’s a Canadian Laker with new paint! That doesn’t happen often, much less coming to Duluth on the first trip afterwards so we can actually see it! First Canadian visitor of the year and she brought quite a story along with her. The Niagara spent her winter in Port Weller drydock along with Algoma Harvester getting fixed up, and goodness did she need it. Last year the ship had almost no paint at all remaining on her bow and sides, she looks great now! Of course with the Welland and seaway locks she’ll probably have a good percentage of that scraped off by next week. The ship had a very rough trip over here. Encountering heavy ice conditions around the Welland, she slowly made her way up to the Soo Locks where she became one of nearly 20 ships to get stuck in the ice there for nearly 5 days. When she finally was able to get moving, severe weather and gale conditions moved into the Eastern lake, forcing her on a longer northern route to calmer waters. A trip that normally takes 4 days instead took nearly a week and a half. When those winds died down she finally set a direct course to Superior Entry to load at BNSF but an hour outside of the city, they changed course. The dense wall of ice built up along the southern part of the bay effectively blocks traffic in and out of Superior, so she diverted up to the Duluth entrance where it was a bit thinner. She still struggled to get through though, coming through the ice pack at 1.5 knots (a little under 2mph) with strong winds ripping off the Lake. She made it through though, and was clearly happy about it, her captain delivering a double salute, a very rare thing for the normally reserved CSL fleet. For those of us on the pier is was pretty miserable, the wind cut through winter gear like it was nothing, almost felt colder than many of the sub-zero days! The fact that she slowed down so much for the ice meant some of us were out there nearly an hour on top of it. Although they are fairly common on the Superior side, she is notably the first CSL vessel to use the Duluth Canal since September 2025. Following her entrance she met up with the tug Missouri following the Canal, which had been clearing a path through the ice in the harbor. The pair sailed through the Front Channel down to BNSF at extremely slow speeds. She is not the only inbound CSL laker, her twin sisters Hon Paul J Martin and CSL Laurentien are close behind. We’ll have to see how things play out for them! Winter storm warnings are in effect for the twin ports this evening through Friday, which will only make things even more difficult! Built in 1972 as the JW McGiffin, the ship was an experimental laker unlike anything that had been built before her. The first CSL ship with a stern pilothouse, the first laker anywhere to feature a rounded bow, the first laker with a square stern, the first laker to feature a C-belt unloading system, the first laker to feature a self unloading system directly integrated into the superstructure. Every single one of these things would become standard in more or less every single laker designed after her for the next 50+ years. The first true modern laker. Originally the ship measured 730ft long with an unusually low carrying capacity for her size of 22,700 tons. The hold design was perfected the following year by the Charles E Wilson, the first modern style US ship (now known as John J Boland, which is also in port getting a refit of her own). Despite that, she set a coal hauling record with her first trip, along with a new capacity record for the Welland Canal. In the following years, 4 new identical ships were added to the Canadian fleet, now known as Paul J Martin, CSL Laurentien, CSL Assiniboine (since modified) and Algolake (scrapped). She spent her early career in the lower lakes coal trade, grounding twice in the Welland Canal in the 80s. In 1991 she rescued the crew of a sinking sailboat in Lake Erie. In 1998 she was removed from service and laid up for an experimental procedure aimed at dramatically improving her performance and increasing her lifespan. She was cut in two in front of her superstructure and her cargo holds scrapped. A new hull was built and attached to the old stern. Renamed CSL Niagara, the ship now measures 740ft long with a capacity of 37,700 tons, and featured the most advanced unloading equipment available at the time. The success of the operation lead to it being repeated for her sister ships and other Canadian lakers until 2009 when the Algoport broke up and sank ahead of a planned overseas rebuilding, leading to a wave of new construction. The Niagara’s engines were replaced in 2013 with new 8,000hp diesels, and this year’s refit means she is good to sail the Lakes for many years to come. Hope you enjoy!