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3. MARINE NEWS What undoubtedly is the most senseless act of marine vandalism to be perpe­ trated on the Great Lakes since the burning of the partially restored steam ferry G. A. BOECKLING at Toledo, took place at Toronto in the early morning hours of Wednesday, July 26th. Persons as yet unidentified, but who must have known exactly how to do what they did, boarded the Royal Canadian Yacht Club's venerable ferries HIAWATHA and KWASIND as they lay moored for the night at the club's city dock, foot of Parliament Street. The seacocks of both ferries were opened, and they took on water. KWASIND, built in 1912, listed and suffered considerable damage, but her predicament was noted in time to recover her and resecure her at her dock. The 1895-built HIAWATHA, however, was not so lucky and sank in some 30 feet of water alongside the pier. KWASIND was taken to the R. C. Y. C. marine yard on the Island where she was cleaned up and her machinery repaired. She ran trials on August 3rd and was back in regular service the following day. HIAWATHA was lifted to the sur­ face on the afternoon of July 28 by the derrick barge ROCK PRINCE and, although repairs were begun almost immediately, she had not yet returned to service by the time of this writing (August 24). The club's race tenders ES­ PERANZA IV and ELSIE D. were pressed into emergency passenger service, and various Toronto excursion vessels were chartered to assist, Nautical Adven­ tures' WAYWARD PRINCESS doing most of this duty. The R. C. Y. C. has posted a $5, 000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the culprits. In contrast, a happy event of the summer of 2000 on the lakes involved the appearance on fresh water of the Liberty Ship JOHN W. BROWN. This, one of only two surviving Liberty Ships out of over 2, 700 of them built in U. S. yards during World War Two, and the only one operating on the U. S. east coast, was sent to the Toledo Shipyard for the replacement of some 14, 000 rivets in her hull. The Toledo yard is one of the few U. S. shipyards still capable of doing rivet work, and the cost was far less than having rivetting crews sent to Baltimore-area yards (the BROWN's home port is Baltimore), where only dribs and drabs of dock time could be had instead of the full period needed to finish the job. The BROWN arrived at the Toledo Shipyard on June 1, having made the entire inbound trip under her own power, and was out of the shipyard on July 14th. She cleared Toledo on July 20, and on her way out of the lakes, she stopped at Windsor, Erie, Cleveland, Buffalo, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec and Halifax. The ship was opened to the public at all of these ports, and six-hour public trips were run out of Windsor, Cleveland and Toronto. Her stay at Toronto included five days of filming for a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation telefilm to be entitled "Haven". Prior to the BROWN's arrival in the lakes, we had not seen a Liberty Ship in these waters since the late 1960s, and it probably has been even longer since we have seen a major vessel being conned from an open navigation bridge on a "monkey's island". The sound of her somewhat "reedy" steam whistle, sounded every time she moved around Toronto Bay during her visit here, brought us fond memories of the oh-so-many Liberties (the nice, the nasty, and the to­ tal rust-bucket tramps) that came into the lakes after the Seaway opened in 1959. JOHN W. BROWN is owned and operated by Project Liberty Ship, Baltimore. There have been a number of minor groundings and bumpings occur on the lakes this year, not surprising during a year of low water levels on most of the Great Lakes. Two accidents, however, have fallen into the very serious cate­ gory. The first of these occurred just as we were going to press with our May issue, so few details were available at that time. On April 28th, down­ bound for Ashtabula with a cargo of ore from Marquette, the American Steam­ ship Company's stemwinder seIf-unloader AMERICAN MARINER suffered a loss of steering whilst nearing the Huron Cut. She veered out of the channel, struck the concrete base of Light No. 7, and put a 30-foot, below water level, gash in her starboard bow. As the damage extended into the forward cargo hold, the ship was in severe peril, but with the help of the U. S. Coast Guard, the flooding was controlled. Part of her cargo was lightered into ADAM E. CORNE