Word: macs
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Merchants in pursuit of profits have sailed Whitefish and Superior since the French fur traders' time, 3½ centuries ago. But for most of that time-until seven years ago, in fact-the ice blocked even the biggest ore boats from January to April. The 35-year-old Mac will push 30 miles out into Whitefish and then back down through St. Marys River and the locks of Sault Ste. Marie, clearing the way for downbound ore carriers and for empty ships upbound from the steel mills at Gary, Ind. Each winter the 290-ft. Mac makes "track...
Winter navigation on the Great Lakes, besides making tedious and costly work for Coast Guard icebreakers, is a highly touchy issue. The Mac's mission is part of a seven-year, $27 million experimental program, now in its last year, to determine whether or not winter navigation is practical. The folks in the steel industry, led by U.S. Steel, believe it is. Giant ore boats now cost $50 million to build, and the industry wants to use them all year for a better return on its money. Year-round navigation also provides a steadier flow of taconite to steel...
...role as a public servant helping to keep the furnaces of the domestic steel industry stoked is cheerfully clear. Says he sardonically: "After it got started, the free-enterprise system worked well for about five minutes." But he has also played host to an assortment of environmentalists aboard the Mac and finds their pitch frustratingly laden with conjecture. "How can anyone tell if we're frightening the fish?" he asks...
...line. Negotiating the harrowing turns of the ice-clogged shipping channel, though, is not the strong suit of the Blough or of any lengthy ore carrier. Shepherding the flotilla of three past Johnson and Stribling points, the two most treacherous turns en route to Lake Huron, will keep the Mac busy until 2 o'clock the next morning...
...bridge, illuminated by dark red night lights that do not impair vision, the watch is nursing the Blough and her followers down-channel. The Mac leads, softening the brash in the channel and "leaning on the corners," as Gordon Hall puts it. The channels are desperately tight. Ore carriers must have room to pivot around the turns without their bows or sterns straying from the deep water. There is much moving back and forth by the Mac in an effort to flush the ice from the shipping lane, and she shakes like a wet puppy. The "Mackinaw Dance," the crew...