Routledge, Robert, Discoveries and Inventions of the 19th Century
the bottom edge of the keel of the vessel. 4
,13th Edition, George Routledge &
Sons, (London), 1900, pages 146-7. 5
Ibid, page 147.
Mansfield, John Brandt, Editor, History of the Great Lakes, Volume I,J.H. Beers & Co. (Chicago),
6
1899, page 435. 7
Zoss, Op. Cit., page 7. 8 Mansfield, Op. Cit., page 436. 9 Engineering News,Volume 29, No. 21, May 18,
1893, page 462. 10
Chadwick, French E., Seaton, Albert E. USN, et
al. Ocean Steamships: A Popular Account of their Construction, Development, Management and Ap- pliances,Charles Scribner’s Sons, (New York),
1891, pages 234-237. 11
T
page 191. 12
ransactions of the Institution of Naval Architects, George Holmes, Editor, London, Volume 33, 1892,
The term “spare buoyancy” refers to one of the CIRCA 1913
An unknown whaleback barge is tethered to the ore hauler Wataat one of the ore docks at Two Harbors, Minnesota. Presumably, the barge is the consort of the larger vessel. This card graphically shows the decreasing importance of consort vessels in Great Lakes ore hauling in the second decade of the last century.
In January, 1905, the liquidation of the whaleback fleet began. The first to go were the barges 117, 127, 201 and 202. In February, 1905, the Benjamin Boutell Company of Bay City, Michi- gan,
Bartlett, Joseph L. Colby, Colgate Hoyt and A.D. Thompson along with barges Sir Joseph Whitworth, John Scott Rus- sell, 105, 107, 109, 110, 116, 126 for its East Coast interests.21 The larger whaleback steamers and barges stayed in the PSC fleet for the re- mainder of the decade. Coulby was not done with them, however. In a trade-in deal that would make modern locomo- tive fleet managers smile, seven whale- backs were “turned over to Great Lakes Engineering Works (Detroit) in part pay- ment for three larger vessels now build- ing. These seven whalebacks haven’t been in commission since 1909.”22
At the
beginning of 1910, only barges 137 and Alexander Holley were left.
“The Pittsburgh Steamship Compa- ny still has about 12 larger-capacity whaleback steamers. It is widely ex- pected that they will be disposed of within a few years.”23 And so they were.
Under their new leases on life, the whalebacks became grain haulers, coastal coal haulers, bulk liquid and petroleum carriers and even Great Lakes automobile carriers.24
In addi-
tion, the peculiar construction of the whalebacks made them very effective Great Lakes icebreakers.
Tied up at a Great Lakes coaling
trestle, a Duluth or Two Harbors ore dock or a Buffalo, Toledo or Chicago
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN 79
terminal grain elevator, a scratchbuilt whaleback steamship or barge would make a very eye-catching Front-of-the- Layout Vignette.
purchased steam ships E.B. 1 Wikipedia, “Whaleback”.
2 Zoss, Neel R., McDougall’s Great Lakes Whale- backs,Arcadia Publishing, (Chicago), 2007, page
Routledge, Robert, Discoveries and Inventions of the 19th Century
14. 3
,1898, page 146-7. For the sake of
this article, the term “draft” (or the English “draught”) will mean the distance between the water line and
physical laws of buoyancy which simply says that a vessel with 1% spare buoyancy is by definition un- sinkable—if (and it is a huge “if”) it is impossible for water to enter the hull. UK shipbuilders consistently built their vessels with large spare buoyancies to ad-
dress the eventuality of a ruptured hull. 13
Ibid, page 194.
14 Engineering News,op. cit., pages 462-463. 15 “Christopher Columbus–an interview with her builder”, The American Marine Engineer,Volume 2,
Number 10, October 7, page 15. 16
Ibid, page 15.
Thompson, Mark L., Steamboats and Sailors of the Great Lakes,Wayne State University Press,
17
(Detroit), 1991, page 25. 18
19
Ibid, page 26. Ibid, page 27.
Pittsburgh Steamship Company
1991, pages 32-44. 21
Thompson, Op. Cit., page 39. 22 Mining & Engineering World,Volume 32, No. 1,
(New York), January 22, 1910, page 185. 23
Ibid.
The Pittsburgh Steamship Company’s S.S. Thomas Colewas the largest ore carrier on the Great Lakes when launched in 1907. Its home port was Duluth. At slightly more than 600 feet in length, it was half-again as long as the largest whaleback. The handwriting was already on the wall for the whalebacks by then. The last one on the lakes, now at a museum in Superior, Wisconsin, was the tanker S.S. Meteor (ex-Frank Rockefeller); it operated until 1969.
CIRCA 1912
20 Miller, Al, The ‘Tin Stackers’, The History of the ,Great Lakes
Books, Wayne State University Press (Detroit),
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