Some news here on this Great Lakes passenger steamboat project, which appears doomed at the moment.

http://www.olm1.com/~wny/buffalo/canadiana.html
ryarger@rypn.org

http://www.cybernothing.org/jdfalk/media-coverage/archive/msg01457.html
ryarger@rypn.org

This sounds like the making of a sad story. They don't have a very good website. I found most of the links do not work. If they want public support they should get a decent website working.

Tom

> This sounds like the making of a sad story.
> They don't have a very good website. I found
> most of the links do not work. If they want
> public support they should get a decent
> website working.

> Tom

I would have to agree that it seems like a sad story. I tried to do my own internet search on the topic of the 'S.S. Canadiana', and was bit concerned to find that all the current links are dead, and that the 'Canadiana' has not been mentioned in the Buffalo Newspaper since a flurry of articles in late 1996. The most recent news of any type I could find was in the Port Cobourne (ON) newspaper in 1998, which reported that the ship was in a drydock there, the local authorities had threatened the drydock owner with legal action if he did not clear the derelict out of the harbor, nobody had paid the dock fees for several years, and a local SCUBA diver club had inquired if the hulk could be scuttled in deep water to serve as a diving destination.
In short, I wonder if the web site on preserving the S.S. Canadiana is in itself a relic, and is the last plainative record of a project which has already been lost. Maybe one of the readers from the Buffalo area can tell us if there is any current news on the S.S. Canadiana?
Dan

This was the latest reference from Boatnerd and its not new (pix is 7/7/01) ... and the text reads doom and gloom.


lamontdc@adelphia.net

The West Coast equivalent would be the SS Catalina, aground in Ensenada Harbor. Anyone heard what is going on with that group lately?

> The West Coast equivalent would be the SS
> Catalina, aground in Ensenada Harbor. Anyone
> heard what is going on with that group
> lately?

The Yahoo Group on the S.S. Catalina is the best way to keep abrest. She is still in Ensenada Harbor, but the spot where she is at is about to be developed. So she can't stay their much longer.

A backer has come forward offering to raise her for free. But there has been little or nothing new posted to the group about progress, or about what the next step will be. Like so many of these groups, it looks at this point like it is going to stumble on the final turn.

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

Surviving World Steamships
james1@pernet.net

As far as I know the Canadiana group disbanded after they lost their ISTEA money. From their web site it sounds like it was only around $400k - from the photos and having seen the boat up close, I really don't know what they expected to accomplish with that money anyway. Looks like that old boat could easily end up costing 10 times that. The battle over the ISTEA money took place in 1996 or 97, but her condition wasn't any better back then. She has been sitting in the same spot in more or less the same condition since at least 1988. The good news is that she's in fresh water, so corrosion isn't as much of a factor as it might seem. The engine and boiler are still in her, all that's really missing is the wooden superstructire, which at this point would most likely need to be replaced anyway even if it was still there, assuming the plan was to make the boat operational anyway.

I suppose she could stand a chance of running again if somebody were to come forward with the money and move her to a more potentially lucrative market like New York City. She's very similar in design to the old Hudson River Day Line propeller steamer Peter Stuyvesant, and her near-sister and former running mate Americana also ended up there, so there is a historical connection. Conventional wisdom around the lakes seems to be that she's too far gone, but according to the Canadiana group's web site, the sidewheel ferry Trillium (now operational in Toronto) was in worse shape when her restoration began. I think part of the problem is that the Lakes have such a wealth of historic ships (or at least they did 10-15 years ago, they're dropping like flies now) that they simply don't know what to do with them all.

rjenkins@railfan.net

> This was the latest reference from Boatnerd
> and its not new (pix is 7/7/01) ... and the
> text reads doom and gloom.

Gentleman-

This is a goner, period. She has been stripped of all the woodwork which made her truly beautiful: in fact, chunks of her were for sale at our Marine Flea Market this past year from a collectibles dealer in Ohio. She has been a lost cause for some time: she spent much of the 1980's sunk up to her top deck in the Cuyahoga river (ala the Henry Hudson) and things went down hill from there. We've sadly lost alot of our Great Lakes Marine passenger heritage over the past 10 years or so: the South American in 1992-93, the G.A. Boeckling to fire just prior to that, the Chief Wawatam, the City of Midland 41, and now the Boblo boat Columbia is leaving for the east (where they don't have a real great reputation for preserving these vessels either). The only bright spot has been the Ste. Claire, which a single family purchased and has at least dry-docked and replaced the decks on. She is currelty in Toledo, and not in that bad of shape now, at least in terms of seaworthiness. It took close to 1/2 million to get it there though....

Tjg


Port Huron Museum
tjgaffney@phmuseum.org

> Gentleman-

> This is a goner, period. She has been
> stripped of all the woodwork which made her
> truly beautiful: in fact, chunks of her were
> for sale at our Marine Flea Market this past
> year from a collectibles dealer in Ohio. She
> has been a lost cause for some time: she
> spent much of the 1980's sunk up to her top
> deck in the Cuyahoga river (ala the Henry
> Hudson) and things went down hill from
> there. We've sadly lost alot of our Great
> Lakes Marine passenger heritage over the
> past 10 years or so: the South American in
> 1992-93, the G.A. Boeckling to fire just
> prior to that, the Chief Wawatam, the City
> of Midland 41, and now the Boblo boat
> Columbia is leaving for the east (where they
> don't have a real great reputation for
> preserving these vessels either). The only
> bright spot has been the Ste. Claire, which
> a single family purchased and has at least
> dry-docked and replaced the decks on. She is
> currelty in Toledo, and not in that bad of
> shape now, at least in terms of
> seaworthiness. It took close to 1/2 million
> to get it there though....

Is PERE MARQUETTE 10 is another one for the list? The CATALINA and the NOBSKA are facing very uncertain futures. Even the 1960s built bulk carrier S.S. NITA M. that used be tied up in Port Neches, Texas as floating storage facility was in Orange at the beginning of this month on it's way to the breakers in India.

Several larger passenger steamships(including some of the ones tied up in Bermuda and New Orleans) went to the breakers in the past few years, with more most likely going in the near future. Ditto for some of the last of the "turbotankers" built prior to the mid 1980s. I also heard some of the vessels in the maritime fleet stored on the James River are heading for scrap as well.

Aside from throwing mass cubic dollars at them, I don't know what to do about all of these losses. But it has made my "Surviving World Steamship" project a very depressing one; it is turning into a death watch for many of the larger vessels. :(

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

Surviving World Steamships

james1@pernet.net

You can add the Canadian bulk carriers Oakglen, Mapleglen, and Algosound to that list, all three of them turbine steamers built between 1953 (Oakglen) and 1962 (Algosound), and all three of them were active last year. Oakglen and Mapleglen were the last steam-powered "straight-deckers" in the Canada Steamship Lines fleet, and the Algosound was the last steamer in the Algoma Central fleet. Now they're laid up in Montreal, names painted out, their sale to overseas breakers already completed. The tug just arrived for the Mapleglen last Thursday, with a departure expected in about a week. A depressing end for a classic ship that was maintained in spotless condition right to the end.

rjenkins@railfan.net

James you are right! Sadly the great steam ships of the past are or soon to be memories. My advise is to see them while you can. A couple examples:

EUREKA with a walking beam engine = 1 cylinder

BALTIMORE with a Compound= 2 cylinders

John W. Brown with a triple = 3 cylinders

Keewaten with a quad = 4 cylinders

Steam Navy: Olympia 2 triples from 1892

USS Texas of 1912 Last major Navy ship built with and up and down engines!

Steam is wonderful.

Ted Miles

ted_miles@nps.gov

Just in case you have any spare time you can sign up at the link below and become part of one!

http://wgmather.nhlink.net/crew.html
lamontdc@adelphia.net

She's very similar in design to
> the old Hudson River Day Line propeller
> steamer Peter Stuyvesant

What ever became of the Peter Stuyvesant? She was floating next to Anthony's Pier 4 restaurant in Boston, and I remember a pretty bad storm came along... Is she on the bottom of the harbor, right where she sank? I realize I'm now strying way off topic, but there was a small saddletanker displayed in the parking lot there also...

SJHussar@aol.com

> This was the latest reference from Boatnerd
> and its not new (pix is 7/7/01) ... and the
> text reads doom and gloom.

Thank you very much for the pic.

I was following the project from a distance in the mid ninetys when I was living in Wisconsin. They had some nice photos of her from about 1991 (?) before they removed the wood superstructure. It looked like a project that was on its way to success. Then it all went to hell.

When I moved to upstate NY in 1998 I tried to find the group and the ship but they seemed to have vanished.

Charles

bg23338@binghamton.edu