Leaving Bay Ship

The first boat left Bay Ship Building Inc on March 10, heading North into the Bay of Green Bay, being lead by a Selvik Tug.

Anderson and Mary E. Hannah

The Arthur Anderson came out of the graving dock and was being moved into a slip as the Tug Jimmy L Selvik circled around cutting ICE. The Anderson was the last boat to speak to the Edmund Fitzgerald before she went down on Lake Superior in 1975

Selvik Tug Jimmy L moving fast in ICE

Arthur Anderson and three Selvik Tugs

Icebreaking…means spring is on the way.

Icebreaking operations have started on the Northern end of Green Bay/Lake Michigan
From Rock Island Passage North to the iron ore docks in Escanaba, Mich.
Ice Coverage of the Great Lakes in Feb

Most years the ships start leaving town in mid-March…it just depends on the economy and the need for iron ore/coal or limestone
The 1000' Edwin Gott was repowered this winter and the new engines are on schedule to be fired up this week.

Today was sunny and warm and I didn't want to heat up the shop until after I picked up my daughter who was baby sitting.  I haven't been over to the Lake for a while, so I thought I’d go up to Whitefish Dunes State Park and take a look at the Lakeshore to see how much shore ice had built up.

Swimming?...let's go!

There wasn’t nearly as much ice as I expected…it would be easy to launch a kayak in several places…maybe I should mount the rack on the van…

I walked the shore south for a mile, and then headed back on the inland trail.

From a rise I could see a tug/barge combination out in Lake Michigan. It must have been on the other side of the Lake, which is about 65 miles across here.

As I walked down the dune, the tug disappeared until only the mast was left.

Whistler and ICE

After the big melt a few weeks ago…we had gone 42 days with the temperature below 32 degrees…the longest cold spell since 1977. The snow was gone, grass was showing everywhere and much of the ICE was clear of snow.

Waiting for the snow to clear off the ice

Whistler

Whistler had been set up waiting for a melt since early January. Saturday morning I had gone for a walk and heard the ghhrrring of large runners on ICE…I went over to the North side of Sunset Park and the iceboats were out. Not much wind, probably in the low teens, but enough to make them fly once they started. I didn’t see Whistler in the morning, but she came out later in the afternoon.

Sunday afternoon, a storm blew in with winds in the high 40’s…the ice boaters were out until the snow was so heavy they couldn’t glide anymore.

Gus the bus...LAMA's Lair
Lama Wama Ice Yacht Squadron

Trap Skiff-Hanging the Garboard

On any boat…The Garboard Plank is the first plank on either side of the keel.

I had temporarily hung the garboard plank last March. …then I was interrupted by a vacation to Kentucky and some medical issues…Summer arrived and it was time to be OUTSIDE...now here I am a year later! I looked over the work, did some adjustments, and decided where to scarf the plank. A Scarf is one way to join two pieces of wood together…it is a tapered joint which can be seamless and as strong as one piece of wood. If I use a 12 to 1 scarf ratio, then each scarf in the 9mm thick wood is approx. 6 inches long. I know there is always a debate about how long of a scarf to use…the longer the scarf, the greater the overlap and the more surface area to glue the lap together. A longer scarf allows the joint to have bending qualities more like the rest of the plank…the glue in the scarf make it stiffer than the unscarfed wood, so a short scarf tends to create a “hard” spot in the plank…if you would let the plank naturally hang down while sighing along its edge, look close and you would see where the scarf is…the shorter the overlap, the more noticeable the scarfed area is. It doesn’t bend as smoothly as the rest of the plank. I tried to take into account where on the hull the scarfs will be by examining where the most twist in the Garboard plank is…or where the planking run was flatter…is the area somewhat flat or is the plank under a lot of tension, such as when near the bow or stern. The Garboard on a Trap Skiff twists nearly 90˚ at each end…a lot of pressure there.

So I had a choice of either placing a scarf near the bow or stern where the plank was twisting or placing two scarfs amidships…making a scarf is not a big deal, so I chose two scarfs, about 3’ apart, where the hull is flatter.

Whitefish and canoes



Almost finished..needs seat, thwarts and varnish

After winding up several projects, such as finishing an 11.5’ canoe I started a few years ago and helping my youngest daughter to visit prospective colleges, the Trap Skiff is finally getting some attention again. 

 

Last weekend my work was interrupted when the neighbor brought over 6 fresh whitefish fillets.  This winter Whitefish seem to be the predominately caught species around here.  So I cooked them up on the grill in foil with butter, garlic, pepper and salt, simple, but good.







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Working ON the Water... in the Shipyard

Bay ship has 15 boats overwintering in the yard…some having work done, others just waiting out the ICE.

I call them boats, but aren’t they ships?…Yes they are ships, but the local workers and ship personnel call them boats…I asked that same question 35 years ago when I started working in the shipyard.

Fitters on Deck

My buddy Jeff is working on the 1000' Edwin Gott while she is having the main engines replaced.

The engine room extends forward of the deckhouse out under the main deck. To access the machinery space, they cut out a large section of main deck and the water ballast tank below that. Then pulled the original engines out and dropped the new engines in, rewelding the removed deck sections back in place….outside in the cool, 10 degree weather.

Now he is working in the balmy, heated, engine room with the machinists and electricians…refitting the floor grating and handrail system around the new engines as they are finished. Jeff was laid off all summer, now he is back to work busting his A*$ working 6 to 7 days a week…such is shipyard life.

Lookout's shelter up forward

The Gott was originally built in the early 80’s with a thicker hull as an experiment to see if year round shipping on the lakes was possible…the ICE won. On its maiden voyage to Superior, WI through Lake Superior, the captain who thought he had a 1000’ ice breaker, managed to damage one of his rudders and punch several gashes in the hull up forward while backing and ramming. It wasn’t an ICEbreaker.

The cool thing about the Gott for me is that when it came into town with its original low speed diesel (100 rpm)…the windows on the house would rattle from the vibration…even though we couldn’t hear the engines.

Indiana Harbor

The Indiana Harbor ran aground last fall and is now in the graving dock having some bottom work done…it took over 24 hours to move the Pine Glen out of the dock and move the Indiana Harbor from her berth into the dock…because of ICE.

Indiana Harbor being moved by the SelvikTug Mary Hannah

Four tugs heading into Green Bay ICE to...where?