A busy week along the Maumee River saw one long-term project begin, one freighter become legally idled and another return to service after two years of idleness.
Sept. 17 saw the arrival of the former Bob-Lo ferry Columbia at the small drydock at Ironhead Shipyard, and the sailing of the lake freighter Adam E. Cornelius for the first time in more than two years.
Cornelius with the rowers, photographed Sept. 28, 2013. Toledo Free Press photo by Don Lee
Historic ferry
Columbia, towed by the tugs Manitou and Captain Keith, is the oldest surviving passenger steamer on the Great Lakes, and was used to ferry people from Detroit to the former amusement park on Boblo Island for many years. The five-deck steamer is at the center of a nonprofit project to refurbish her and return her to service, this time as a cruise boat on the Hudson River in New York.
Ironhead’s part of the project is to inspect the boat and make sure she is in good enough shape to tow to New York, which is expected to take place by next August, according to The Detroit Free Press.
Columbia, built in 1902 in Wyandotte, Michigan, was designed to carry more than 3,000 passengers on five decks, and included mahogany staircases and an open-air ballroom, a unique feature allowed for by a new framing system designed by marine architect Frank Kirby.
Columbia last sailed for Boblo Island in 1991; by then, competition from Cedar Point had become too much for the amusement park.
Columbia’s sister ship, Ste. Claire, briefly spent time in Toledo several years ago, with an eye toward restoration. Ste. Claire, also designed by Kirby, was built in Toledo but returned to her berth alongside Columbia in Ecorse, Michigan.
Both boats were given a cosmetic restoration for the filming of “Transformers: Age of Extinction.”
Return to service
Another Toledo-built boat of more modern heritage sailed last week for the first time in more than two years.
American Steamship Co.’s lake freighter Adam E. Cornelius, idled just downriver from Ironhead, sailed Sept. 17. A reviving economy has created enough demand for iron ore and associated cargoes that Cornelius was needed.
Cornelius had been tied up since January 2012 at a piece of riverfront property along Front Street, owned by the shipping line.
Cornelius, a 680-foot, self-unloading bulk freighter, was built in Toledo and launched in 1973 as the Roger M. Kyes, the name she had until 1989. She is the largest ship to have been built in Toledo, and at the time of her launch was the first new vessel to have been built at the Toledo shipyard since 1959, according to the Great Lakes site boatnerd.com
The ship’s return to service has kept her busy operating between Lake Superior ports and, as of Sept. 24, a week since she sailed, she was in Lake Huron.
Under arrest
Unpaid bills totaling $900,000 are still keeping an oceangoing freighter tied up at the Midwest Overseas Terminal on the Maumee.
The freighter Fritz, registered in Liberia and with a Romanian crew, hasn’t been able to leave Toledo since arriving in August to drop off a load of steel coil.
This is the second time on the same trip the Fritz has encountered trouble, being detained for more than two weeks in Oshawa, Ontario, near Toronto after being towed there by tugs because of engine problems, according to the Oshawa Express newspaper.
She was repaired before being allowed to proceed to Toledo.
A port official who spoke to the Express in July said the Fritz, which was built in 2010, looked as though it had been “manufactured in 1910” because of its condition.
In photos taken of the Fritz by freighter fans in Toledo, the ship is showing considerable rust and wear on her hull.
There were also problems in July with the crew being paid, but the Oshawa paper cited a man claiming to be the Fritz’s captain who said that had been resolved after a new management company took over the ship.
The crew received assistance from churches in the Toronto area’s Romanian community, the Express reported.
Boblo steamer Columbia in drydock at Ironhead. Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority Facebook Page.
Scrap future
The future is dimmer for two American Steamship Co. fleetmates in long-term layup at the mouth of the Maumee.
The freighters American Fortitude and American Valor are likely candidates for the scrapyard. Both ships, of the older, classic Great Lakes design, have been idle since 2008 and the tight-knit community of freighter fans who call themselves “boatnerds” have been speculating among themselves whether or when the freighters will meet their end.
Bottom-line-conscious shippers have considered the older ships too expensive to operate, even the ones in good condition. Some lake boats built in the 1940s are still in service.
Parts have been taken off the Valor for use aboard similar ships, according to boatnerd.com, and there was a brief flurry of speculation this week when one boatwatcher reported the heavy tug Ohio, which has in the past been used to tow ships to the scrapyard, had left Cleveland and was headed west on Lake Erie. However, that tug bypassed Toledo and as of Wednesday afternoon was in the Detroit River industrial area.
