Great Lakes Cities

[Markitect]

Originally Posted by galleyfox

So you get stories of Chicago commuters and pedestrians jumping across drawbridge gaps well into the 70's.

Obligatory Blues Brothers video...

• Video Link

[SIGSEGV]

This thread is inspiring me to go visit the Chicago Maritime Museum...

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Markitect

Obligatory Blues Brothers video...

• Video Link

On a mission from gaad.

[Steely Dan]

some cool updates regarding great lakes shipping news:

Photos: Float Out of First U.S. Built Great Lakes Bulker Since 1983
BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE 01-01-2021 04:56:33





The first U.S. flagged Great Lakes bulk carrier to be built on the Great Lakes in nearly four decades marked a key point in its construction with its recent float out from the graving dock. Being built for The Interlake Steamship Company at the Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding yard in Wisconsin, the vessel which is named the Mark W. Barker is the first Great Lakes bulk carrier built domestically since 1983.

Jointly designed by Fincantieri and Interlake, the order for the bulk carrier was placed in April 2019. The engineering and pre-fabrication work for its modular sections began in the fall of 2019 and the first keel block was laid in June 2020.

The hull is structurally now about 70 percent complete. Having reached this stage of construction, the vessel was ready to move to a new location in the shipyard while also making space in the dry dock for other vessels that will be undergoing a winter overhaul at the yard.

source: https://www.maritime-executive.com/i...ker-since-1983

Viking Octantis Floats Out Ahead of 2022 Debut
December 25, 2020





Viking has announced announced its first expedition ship – the 378-guest Viking Octantis – was “floated out” at VARD, marking a major construction milestone and the first time that the new ship touches water.

Scheduled to debut in early 2022, the Viking Octantis will spend her maiden season sailing voyages to Antarctica and North America’s Great Lakes.

source: https://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/c...ouches%20water.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

some cool updates regarding great lakes shipping news:



source: https://www.maritime-executive.com/i...ker-since-1983





source: https://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/c...ouches%20water.

I wonder if we could get them to ship some of our experimental equipment to Antarctica (sadly they're probably going to the wrong side).

[Boisebro]

You can't show that Blues Brothers jump video without also showing the Illinois Nazis and their epic jump from the same movie.

They jumped from Milwaukee and landed in Chicago. Totally rad.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Boisebro

You can't show that Blues Brothers jump video without also showing the Illinois Nazis and their epic jump from the same movie.

They jumped from Milwaukee and landed in Chicago. Totally rad.

it's only 80 miles.

besides, if you listen to certain people here, chicago and milwaukee are already well on their way to being a single metro area anyway (they are not).





but yeah, it's one hell of an awesome movie! (my personal favorite "chicago" movie of all time; it's a little hard to believe it's now 40 years old)

[mrnyc]

oh yeah blues bros is definitely the top chi movie, beating out cooley high.

and many thx for the ship building update. wow. i wish some of my relatives who worked at amship and in cle docks were still alive to see this.

i see its named also named barker. the james barker built in lorain was the first 1000'er. the interlake corporate family.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

i see its named also named barker. the james barker built in lorain was the first 1000'er. the interlake corporate family.

the "James R. Barker" was built in 1976 and was actually the 2nd proper 1,000 footer on the lakes after the "Stewart J. Cort" (1972), and the 3rd if you include the "Presque Isle" ITB (1972), which when mated together, is also 1,000' long.

however, the "James R. Barker" was the first 1,000 footer to be built entirely on the great lakes. both the "Stewart J. Cort" and the "Presque Isle" ITB had sections built down on the gulf coast that were then brought up to the lakes via the seaway for final assembly.

But yes, the new freighter under construction in sturgeon bay will carry Interlake's "Barker" family name. i believe that "Mark W. Barker" refers to James R's grandson. there's also the "Kaye E. Barker", named after James R's wife.

[mrnyc]

^ yes, the barker being the first built entirely on the great lakes of course, not the previous asterisk freighters, i'm a nativist lol.

btw the biggest cargo ships in ny harbor are i think 1200,' but with the full load of crates it looks triple its size.

crazy behemoths almost beyond belief -- and so fragile and unnatural looking.

[Steely Dan]

^ yeah, the new locks on the panama canal now allow for ships up to 1,200' long, so new panamax is the standard that a lot of commercial ships around the world are built to these days. Before the new locks were completed in 2016, the old panamax standard was 950' for ship length.

The US army corp of engineers is currently rebuilding the outdated davis and sabin locks at Sault Ste. Marie into a single lock that will match the size of the existing Poe lock (the only one that can currently accommodate the 1,000 footers), and after that work is done, I can't imagine that we'll ever see larger locks at the Soo in any of our lifetimes, so the 1,000 footers are more or less the largest ships we'll ever see ply the waters of these magnificent inland freshwater seas.

Which is just fine, because a 1,000' long ship is still a pretty damn big ship. I mean, that's roughly 270' longer than than detroit's ren cen is tall.


Source: https://dalefishergalleries.com/prod...ver-freighter/

[mrnyc]

^ thats good to hear too -- of course the locks have historically been an issue.

while i don't think more freighters would be needed these days, but certainly some of the aging ships will be replaced -- and its just so cool to see anything being built again like the new barker. i remember touring the old one as a kid.

re the others -- i'm sure there is a whole range of large great lakes ships which could also be built fairly regularly aside from like the coast guard. there must enough pent up work by now after all these years of nothing. one thing that comes right to mind is the goodtime 3, the beloved local cleveland lake cruise ship -- it was built in 1988 and i bet they may be due for an new upgrade sometime soon.

[The North One]

I was starting to think that Viking ship was toast after Covid, good to see it's still going.

[Docere]

On the Toronto-Buffalo relationship:

Sometimes Buffalonians feel like the little brother in this relationship. Toronto is bigger and more moneyed – as if Buffalo were somehow the Canada of this friendship, and Toronto the United States of it.

https://buffalonews.com/news/local/e...3d65d562d.html

[Steely Dan]

^ interesting take on the nature of the rivalry.

Buffalo: the Canada of America!



One thing that Chicago misses out on by being at the very southern end of the only solely american great lake is the US/canada dynamic.

Everywhere else in the region, the other four lakes are shared by the two nations. Even if it's just a vague sense of "Canada/America is just right over there on the other side of the lake", it's still there.

But in Chicago, there's zero sense of Canada being "in the neighborhood". The other side of the lake for us is just Michigan, which is still cool and all, but in no way shape or form "foreign" or "other".

[suburbanite]

I've been out on a friend's boat in St Catherines because we wanted to watch some of the freighters come out of the Welland Canal. Afterwards we ended up going over to Niagara-on-The-Lake, and then probably a good 20 km down the American Shoreline. I remember thinking how quiet it is and how easily you could just park in someone's backyard and ship drugs or whatever across the border. I imagine there's more efficient ways, but it is always weird being along such a long, relatively unmonitored national border.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

I've been out on a friend's boat in St Catherines because we wanted to watch some of the freighters come out of the Welland Canal. Afterwards we ended up going over to Niagara-on-The-Lake, and then probably a good 20 km down the American Shoreline. I remember thinking how quiet it is and how easily you could just park in someone's backyard and ship drugs or whatever across the border. I imagine there's more efficient ways, but it is always weird being along such a long, relatively unmonitored national border.

what's weird about it? it's the canadian border, not the mexican. doubtful it would ever need to change, unless people start snorting and injecting maple syrup or something, could that ever be a thing? ha -- and for so for that we all should be grateful. 90% of the heroin to the usa comes via mexico and 90% of the blow comes via columbia, so hardcore monitoring is not worth any bother.

[202_Cyclist]

Here are a couple of photos of Lake Champlain, which was a Great Lake for 18 days in 1998. It is still a very, very, very, good lake.



Photo courtesy of Glenn Doten (Flickr)


Photo courtesy of Šarūnas Burdulis (Flickr)

[Docere]

Originally Posted by 202_Cyclist

Here are a couple of photos of Lake Champlain, which was a Great Lake for 18 days in 1998. It is still a very, very, very, good lake.

It had a good run!

[Docere]

Not really a huge deal but Toronto's main sports teams tend to play in the eastern division with Boston and NYC rather than in the central division with Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland. It's true of the Blue Jays and the Raptors; the Maple Leafs were in the east too but now all the Canadian NHL teams are in one division due to Covid. I don't think Toronto really has a Great Lakes regional identity - even though the Great Lakes are a central feature of Ontario geography. Though occasionally there are Chicago/Toronto comparisons in the two main Great Lakes cities.