Great lake boats, a good video

[ArlyA]

The Dirk seems to be loading now, if that's the case, plenty of time to get below the locks by the shut down on the 15th.

 

[jjeff]

The badger is done.

S.S. Badger returns to Ludington dock after maintenance in Wisconsin

upnorthlive.com

 

[ArlyA]

From TV 6 tonight, Soo Locks closing for seasonal repair, maintenance​

Photo courtesy of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District (WLUC)
By TV6 News Team
Published: Jan. 13, 2022 at 1:24 PM EST|Updated: 5 hours ago
SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich. (WLUC) - The Soo Locks in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. will close to marine traffic beginning 11:59 p.m. Jan. 15 through 12:01 a.m. March 25 to perform critical maintenance.
The operating season is fixed by federal regulation and is driven in part by the feasibility of vessels operating in typical Great Lakes ice conditions.
“It is a difficult time in terms of weather to complete this work, but it keeps this important national infrastructure project operating during shipping season,” Soo Area Engineer Kevin Sprague said.
Every year, the Corps of Engineers uses the winter period to perform maintenance to keep the Soo Locks operating. The Detroit District team works long hours in extreme conditions to complete a significant amount of maintenance during this annual closure period. The work they perform is unique, especially given the harsh northern Michigan conditions they work in.
The Corps of Engineers has several projects to complete before reopening the locks in March.
“The dewatering gate will be used at the lower end and stop logs will be set at the upper end of the Poe Lock to allow work and inspection to occur on the Poe Lock,” Maintenance Branch Chief LeighAnn Ryckeghem said. “Sequencing for the Poe Lock dewatering efforts require full operations and maintenance staffing including weekend and holiday work from Jan. 15-21.”
The team will install a temporary panel bridge across the Poe Lock. This panel bridge will provide the ability to mobilize materials and equipment to the job sites throughout the winter closure.
Maintenance crews will complete Poe Lock hydraulic steel structure inspections, miter gate bottom girder structural repair and seal replacement, miter gate pintle concrete repairs, dewatering system maintenance and floating plant maintenance. The miter gates are the large gates that serve as dams at each end of the lock chamber allowing the water to be raised and lowered in the chamber.
Contractors will perform rehabilitation of the Poe Lock upstream primary gate. Abhe & Svoboda Inc. of Jordan, Minnesota, was awarded the contract in July 2021 with a construction completion in March 2022. The contract amount is $4.3 million.
In addition to the above, crews also perform a wide range of other maintenance tasks from fender timber replacements on the piers to inspections and preventative maintenance on electrical and mechanical systems on both Poe and MacArthur Locks.
The Corps of Engineers is building a second Poe-sized lock to provide much needed resiliency in the Great Lakes Navigation System. The second Poe-size lock, 110-feet by 1,200-feet, is being built on the existing Davis and Sabin Locks sites. The Davis Lock, which opened in 1914, has not used since 2018, and only to transport Corps vessels. The Sabin Lock opened in 1918 and has been inactive since 1989. Both the Sabin and Davis Locks are too shallow for most modern vessels.
The Corps of Engineers contractor wrapped up the second year of upstream channel deepening mid-December, excavating about 150,000 cubic yards of Jacobsville sandstone to deepen the north canal enough for the 1,000-foot ships that will use it. The deepening work will resume in Spring 2022. The project’s second phase to stabilize the existing upstream approach walls wrapped up the first year of construction. The contractor constructed an on-site concrete batch plant, installed 26 coffer cells and placed 13,000 cubic yards of concrete. The upstream approach walls work will resume in Spring 2022. The final phase of construction, constructing the lock chamber, is scheduled to begin in the 2022 construction season.
Watch the Detroit District Facebook page Войдите на Facebook for information about the last vessel to transit the Poe Locks for the 2021-2022 shipping season and updates about the maintenance work.
More than 4,500 vessels, carrying up to 80 million tons of cargo, maneuver through the locks annually. Iron ore, coal, wheat and limestone are among the most frequently carried commodities. Opened in 1969, the Poe Lock is 1,200 feet long. The MacArthur Lock was opened in 1943 and is 800 feet long.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District, maintains a navigation system of 95 harbors, including the Great Lakes Connecting Channels that join lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, St. Clair and Erie.

 

[5030]

That boat is most certainly loaded to the Plimsol mark.....

 

[ArlyA]

I just counted 15 boats on our lake, only one heading to Duluth, that is the Paul Tregurtha who'd be tying up there. Busy weekend at the locks l'd guess.

 

[RobS]

SS Badger is back in Ludington!

 

[ArlyA]

Ice notes from TV6 news.
----------------------------------------------------
By Alex Brisbey
Published: Jan. 14, 2022 at 5:01 PM EST|Updated: 18 hours ago
MARQUETTE, Mich. (WLUC) -

Ask anyone in the U.P. why Lake Superior is so special and they’ll say it’s in the name.
By surface area, Lake Superior is the world’s largest freshwater lake, with a surface area of 31,700 miles. It also houses 10% of the earth’s surface fresh water and has a direct affect on our weather. Lake Superior currently has less than 10% ice coverage. The National Weather Service says this isn’t unusual.
“If we look back to last year, and it was such a warm year, one of the warmest we’ve had on record,” said National Weather Service Meteorologist Matt Zika. “Plus the water temperatures on Lake Superior have been above normal all last year through the early part of the winter and they’re currently a couple degrees still above normal. Thus, we haven’t accumulated a lot of ice.”

The amount of ice coverage on the lake plays a big part in determining how much lake effect snowfall we receive each winter. “The more ice coverage we have [on] the lake, we lose the effect of the heat on the water boiling up into the atmosphere and causing our lake effect snow like we have occurring today,” said Zika.
Zika then explains what conditions lead to widespread ice on the lake.
“We need clear, calm nights for widespread ice to form across the great lakes. On days like today when it’s windy and cold, you have a lot of wave action out there, you may start to form some ice but then it quickly starts to break up,” said Zika.
When this ice breaks up, it gets pushed against the shore by the waves and forms nearly perfect cylindrical balls of ice. Lake Superior goes through cycles of ice coverage Zika says, with great coverage happening nearly once every decade.
“Basically about once every ten years we should get ice coverage in excess of 90%,” said Zika.
It’s still too early to tell if enough ice will form in the lower harbor of Marquette to allow for ice skating this winter. Either way, get out there and enjoy the beauty of Lake Superior this winter.

 

[5030]

One thing I learned early on when I was a kid and my parents and I visited the UP was not to go swimming in Lake Superior....lol. That sucker is always cold.

 

[jjeff]

One thing I learned early on when I was a kid and my parents and I visited the UP was not to go swimming in Lake Superior....lol. That sucker is always cold.

Late summer the bays actually get pretty warm.

 

[5030]

Late summer the bays actually get pretty warm.

You mean 40 instead of 35?