Slow going in the St. Mary’s River prevails in shipping season start
March 26, 08 by TheFleetIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
by Jack Storey | Source: Soo Evening News
Ships in the river overnight hove-to or tied up where they were to await daylight and the resumption of icebreaker escorts, starting with two thousand-foot self unloaders making the first downbound trips of the season.
Coast Guard operations manager Mark Gill said the 1,000-foot Indiana Harbor and Edwin H. Gott opted to lay over the nighttime hours at the Soo Locks pier wall after locking down late Tuesday. Gill explained that while the commercial ships waited, two Bay-Class tugs completed the initial opening of the often-troublesome West Neebish Channel in preparation for the two wide-bodied vessels due down early today.
He said Coast Guard ice escorts are suspended during nighttime hours because of very limited visibility and safety concerns. However, an extra hour of daylight in the evening and a bright moon overnight aided the tugs Katmai Bay and Biscayne Bay in their joint channel-clearing operation at West Neebish.
Downriver of that passage on the upbound side, a cluster of four ships waited in the ice overnight at Mud Lake before resuming their first upbound passages of the season in heavy ice conditions. Stewart J. Cort, James R. Barker, Algorail and Canadian Transfer were all expected to get underway early today after waiting out the night in the ice.
