Michipicoten (ship, 1952)

''Michipicoten'' (named ''Elton Hoyt 2nd'' when she entered service in 1952) is a self-discharging lake freighter owned and operated by Canadian shipping firm Lower Lakes Towing of Port Dover, Ontario. ''Michipicoten'' primarily hauls taconite from Marquette, Michigan, to the Algoma Steel Mill in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. She has a capacity of 22,300 tons, a speed of , and a length of .

Construction

''Michipicoten'' was built in 1952 by Bethlehem Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. in Sparrows Point, Maryland. She was one of three vessels built to similar plans for the Interlake Steamship Company. It was launched as ''Elton Hoyt 2nd''. The other two vessels, ''Johnstown'' and ''Sparrows Point'', were also built by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation.

All three ships were brought to the Great Lakes via the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, restricting their size. Specifically, ''Elton Hoyt 2nd'' measured long, with a capacity of around 20,000 tons. She was powered by a Bethlehem Steel cross compound steam turbine and two oil-fired Foster-Wheeler water tube boilers. As ''Elton Hoyt 2nd'' was brought through the rivers, her cabins and pilothouse were carried on-deck, assembled in Chicago, and entered service on August 15, 1952.

Service history

Over the course of the next nearly two decades, ''Elton Hoyt 2nd'' entered a pattern of shipping iron ore from Duluth, Minnesota, or Superior, Wisconsin, to a number of ports in the lower Great Lakes.

Throughout the 1950s, ''Elton Hoyt 2nd'' had an incident-free career. In 1957, she was lengthened by , increasing her total length to . The lengthening also increased her capacity to around 23,000 tons. In 1966, the ''Elton Hoyt 2nd'' was sold to Pickands Mather and Co. She remained in their fleet until 1973.

Conversion to a self-unloader

Twenty-three years later, in 1980, ''Elton Hoyt 2nd'' was again upgraded, this time in a conversion to a self-unloading vessel. She was converted at the Toledo, Ohio-based American Ship Building Company. In 1985, ''Johnstown'', which had not been converted to a self unloader, was sold for scrap. The third ship, ''Sparrows Point'', was converted in 1980 and sailed as ''Buckeye'' until 2008, when that ship sustained severe damage to her engines and shortly after was converted again by the Rand Logistics/Lower Lakes Towing company into the barge ''Menominee'', leaving ''Michipicoten'' the last fully functional member of her class.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the ''Elton Hoyt 2nd'' saw varied use. For some seasons, she did not sail. In the 1990s, the vessel was certified to carry grain, and made several trips to Buffalo, New York, in addition to her regular loads of taconite.

Sale

On April 10, 2003, it was announced that ''Elton Hoyt 2nd'' was sold to Lower Lakes Towing, a Canadian shipping company. She was renamed ''Michipicoten'' after the Canadian river of the same name. The name ''Michipicoten'' means "Big bluffs" in the Ojibwe language and refers to the hills near the river. She was christened on May 24, 2003, in Sarnia, Ontario. The ship began supplying taconite to the Algoma Steel Mill in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

In December 2010, ''Michipicoten'' was laid up in Sarnia. Over the course of several months, her steam turbine system was replaced with a MaK 6M32C 6-cylinder diesel engine and a new pitch propeller. The cost of the upgrade was around US$15 million.

Hull damage

On June 8, 2024, the ship suffered hull damage while traveling near Isle Royale in Lake Superior. The ship's crew reported hearing a loud bang while the vessel was in deep water. The ship began taking on water, and at one point reached a 15 degree list. The crew was able to issue a distress call and start pumps that alleviated the list to 5 degrees. The distress call was met by the , which waited with ''Michipicoten'' until the arrival of the U.S. Coast Guard. ''Michipicoten'' sailed for Thunder Bay, Ontario, under her own power with escorts from the U.S. and Canadian Coast Guard. At the time it was thought the vessel had struck an underwater object; however, there has been no evidence found to suggest a collision.

While in port, divers inspected the hull and determined the likely cause may have been fatigue. Divers discovered a nearly crack in the hull. A member of the Coast Guard stated "It looks like a hull failure, which could be the result of stress, fatigue, age of the vessel," he said, but cautioned that a full investigation is needed to determine the cause for certain. The exact cause of the damage remains unknown. The divers placed a temporary patch to the crack.

On June 20, 2024, ''Michipicoten'' arrived at Superior from Thunder Bay under her own power, escorted by the tugboat ''Helen H'', bound for Fraser Shipyards for inspection and repair. Transport Canada had not approved for her to return to service after repairs.

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{{2024 shipwrecks
1952 ships
Merchant ships of Canada
Merchant ships of the United States
Great Lakes freighters
Ships built in Quincy, Massachusetts
Maritime incidents in 2024