I was in this shipbreaker's yard in the early 1990's when we had work being done on some of our hydro turbines at a machine shop in Port Colborne, Ontario. The owner of the machine shop was a former merchant marine engineer from Holland. He knew of my interest in steam power, and my having been on some of the old ore carriers on the Lakes. He drove to the shipbreaker's yard, and he knew the owner. At the time, the ships being scrapped were the really old classic "flush deckers". The yard was filled with steam powered auxiliary machinery- Troy steam engine/generator ship's service generating sets, Troy (or Whitin Victory) enclosed steam engines which had driven circulating pumps and forced draft blowers, countless numbers of steam pumps of all shapes and sizes, steam steering engines, and countless numbers of steam deck windlasses and other steam winches. The owner of the yard liked the old steam powered stuff, so was collecting it in his yard. He was not letting any of it out when I asked about buying a Troy-Engberg ship's service engine/generator set. All the brightwork and goodies like gauges, portlights, engine telegraphs, and similar was long gone, locked away or sold to collectors or people decorating nautical restaurants. The owner of the yard asked me which vessels I remembered from my time working in the Upper Peninsula. I'd name a vessel, and he'd show me a deck windlass or some other piece of auxiliary machinery from that ship, with the ship's name stamped into it for the times it was taken into machine shops ashore for rebuild or repair. I named some really old Steinbrenner boats a buddy had shipped on as a fireman, and the fellow at the shipbreaker's had plenty to tell about having scrapped them as well. He was scrapping the US Maritime Commission vessels about the time I visited his yard. These were ore carriers built around 1943 for the War Effort, and had recip engines and jet condensers. I believe they were the last real numbers of recip powered vessels built for service on the Lakes.
I've tried emailing and calling the fellow who owned that shipbreaker's yard as there is stuff we need for the restoration of the historic steam vessel "Columbia". Columbia dates to about 1901 and was in steam into the later 1980's. Her hull and machinery are in good condition, with a drydocking and extensive hull repairs done at a yard in Toledo that still rivets. Her superstructure is a kind of exoskeletal steel framing system with wood construction. Most of the wood superstructure is rotted beyond any repair. All of the gauges, engine telegraphs, ship's wheel and helm, binnnacle, running lights, etc is long gone. Surprisingly, her main engine and boilers and auxiliary machinery was all properly laid up and kept safe from vandals. Somewhere along the line, in the various groups or parties who have laid claim to the vessel, the gauges, telegraphs, helm, etc all went missing. I was hoping the ship breaker in Port Colborne would respond to emails and calls and perhaps have some of his stash of this sort of thing to sell.
The yard at Port Colborne is a sad place to visit, and realizing a way of life and an era is dead. They even cleaned out American Shipbuilding at Lorain, OH, and had piles of ship's tailshaft forgings sitting in the yard. Apparently, they have progressed from cutting up ships with oxy-fuel torches to using excavators with demolition shears, judging by the photos. At this point in time, there are very few vessels left on the Lakes with steam turbine propulsion. It has reached the point where even diesel powered Great Lakes vessels are going to the breaker's. Some of the older recip powered vessels got a new lease on life by being converted to diesel power in the '80's and 90's. Now, these vessels and even newer ships are going to the breakers. I always wondered at the wisdom of towing a Great Lakes vessel off the lakes and clear over to Alang, India, or demolition ports in Turkey or Spain. Scrap had to have been at a very high price, and the cost of scrapping an old ship laden with asbestos and lead-based paints in the USA or Canada had to have also been so high as to make towing these ships clear to India or Turkey an economically sound proposition. For a time, the yard at Port Colborne would buy two vessels to be scrapped. The less seaworthy or smaller of the two vessels would be cut up at the Port Colborne yard. The scrap steel from that vessel would be loaded into the ore holds of the larger/more seaworthy of the two vessels. That larger vessel, with the scrap from the smaller one as ballast, would then be towed off the Lakes and over to the scrapping port in Alang or Turkey or Spain.
I think part of what drove the last of the recip steam powered vessels into retirement or conversion to diesel was the more stringent regulations about discharge of oily water from the bilges. The old recip steam vessels had "total loss" oiling, and it was inevitable that plenty of oil from the engine's bearings wound up in the bilges. Separating this tramp oil before pumping bilges was quite a job and likely required retrofitting various types of oil separation equipment. Then, the cost of labor to run a recip steam powered vessel and the relatively low overall efficiency of that system of propulsion all drove the nails in to finish off recip steam power on the Lakes. In the 70's, when the US steel industry and Big Auto were both booming, iron mines and ore concentration/pelletizing plants were being built, and it seemed like any "bottom" which could haul a cargo of taconite (iron ore) pellets down the Lakes was sailing. The result was many older recip vessels were sailing and the shipping season stretched as long as possible. Even in those good times, the handwriting was on the wall: 1000 foot long diesel powered ore carriers were coming into use on the Lakes. The 1000 footers are ugly looking vessels with no real lines to them. Typically, they are twin screw vessels, with bridge control of the engines. Much smaller crews are needed, and the word back then was one of the 1000 foot diesel vessels could handle the tonnage of somewhere between 3 to 5 of the old 500-600 foot recip powered vessels. It was apparent the old recip powered ore boats were on borrowed time even then. Some were still coal fired, right to the end of the recip steam era on the Lakes. Ore was loaded 24/7 in the Upper Lake ports back then. About 1980, it seemed like the bottom fell out of the US heavy industry-based economy. Big Steel was nearly dead. Ore boats were put into "reserve fleets" in places like Duluth, rafted together, or laid up one or two at a time in various locations on the Lakes. Most of those boats never came out of layup and went right to the breakers. The yard in Port Colborne was plenty busy scrapping those older ore boats when I visited there in the early 1990's. It seems like a whole era has ended, and seeing newer diesel vessels coming into the ship breaker's yard has me wondering what the service life of those vessels is, and wondering also at where the years have gone since I used to see the recip steam vessels loading ore in Marquette, MI with coal smoke trailing off their funnels. I don't find myself mourning the demise of the newer diesel powered vessels as I did the old classic ore carriers. Those old hulls had some real lines to them, and looked like what you'd expect a ship to be. I hope that the foundation restoring the "Columbia" can get some of what's needed out of the stashes that must still be in the Port Colborne shipbreaker's yard.
