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Ship of the Month - cont'd . 10. In the heavy weather, BRITON had swung around and was lying full-length on the shoal. RESCUE managed to lighter some 20, 000 bushels of flax from the ship, but on November 18, with huge waves washing over BRITON in a 54 m. p. h. gale, salvage efforts were suspended. They resumed later, RESCUE working with the tug NEBRASKA, and 7, 000 more bushels were removed, but heavy weather again forced work to stop on November 21. The Canadian lighter BADGER was brought to the scene to assist, along with the tug GLIDE from Port Colborne, but on November 24, a "howling gale" forced the U. S. Coast Guard to remove the BADGER's eight- man crew and the storm then drove the lighter ashore as well. By November 29, the flax cargo was beginning to wash up on the beach at Point Abino and little hope was held for the salvage of either BRITON or BADGER. In due course, Buckeye abandoned BRITON to the underwriters. An item datelined Port Col­ borne, June 28, 1932, reported in the Toronto "Mail and Empire", indicated that Sin Mac Lines crews were to begin work that week on BRITON using the tug JAMES WHALEN and barge ELEANOR. But still BRITON could not be salvaged and eventually she was broken up for scrap where she lay. Lengthy litigation ensued between Buckeye and Spencer Kellogg. Buckeye wanted the cargo ow­ ners to help with the cost of the salvage efforts that had recovered a portion of the cargo, while Spencer Kellogg counter-sued over the value of the lost cargo. 34 questions of fault were raised in the proceedings. The Federal Court found in favour of Buckeye on every issue. Spencer Kellogg appealed to the Circuit Court of Appeals, which agreed with the de­ cision of the lower court. Spencer Kellogg then took the matter to the United States Supreme Court which, in October 1934, upheld the lower court's decision. So while Buckeye (or its insurers) had to swallow the salvage fees, the cargo owners recovered nothing of the $250, 000 they had claimed. Ed. Note: This whole feature got started because we took a strong liking to that October 26, 1929, photo of BRITON in the Cuyahoga River only a few weeks before her loss. (It's sometimes amazing what gets us excited! ) We set out to dig up whatever we could about BRITON, starting with what was in the Bascom and Kidd files, and with the assistance of Capt. Gerry Ouderkirk's records and the Ivan Brookes scrapbooks. We have Al Hart, Len Barr and Jack Messmer to thank for providing some very rare photographs, and Jack provided an absolute wealth of material gleaned from the Buffalo and Cleveland newspapers throughout the life of BRITON. Also of assistance were Richard Kruse's book The Silver Stackers and the fifth volume of John Greenwood's The Fleet Histories Series. We doubt that much more could possibly be written about BRITON, but if any members have anything to add, please contact us. * * * * * CAPE BRETON MINER AGAIN When we featured CAPE BRETON MINER in the summer issue, we touched briefly on her demise, with MAZAHUA being scrapped in Taiwan in 1987. We mentioned that she was sold for USD 92 per light ton displacement for scrapping at Brownsville, Texas, but that she then was resold to Taiwanese breakers. Thanks to longtime member Bill Schell, we have further information, gleaned from Lloyd's Register records. The resale was at a considerably higher price of USD 140 per light ton displacement. The ship was broken up by Kuo Dar Steel Enterprise Co. Ltd. Then comes something surprising. As stated, she arrived at Kaohsiung on May 27, but we now learn that the breakers began work on MAZAHUA on June 24, 1987, and was completed on July 13, 1987. She was broken up in only about three weeks? How could that be? It seems that at Kaohsiung, all scrap berths were rented from the port au­ thority and by the mid-1980s, daily rates were high enough that speed was of the essence. To illustrate, a large tug was cut up in only four days! It is probable that ships were cut quickly into sections that could be moved back from the quay wall for final dismantling. * * * * *