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Season's Greetings - cont'd. possible happiness in the New Year. Take care, dear friends, and may 2008 bring to us all an increased measure of love, warmth, security and safety, good health and success in all of our endeavours. * * * * * MARINE NEWS A late-season accident has brought to an end the career of one of the most venerable ships operating on the lakes. She is the Grand River Navigation Company's CALUMET, (a) MYRON C. TAYLOR (01), which was built by the Great Lakes Engineering Works at River Rouge, Michigan, in 1929 for the Pittsburgh Steamship Company. Then the "Steel Trust's" flagship, she was given a triple-deck forward deckhouse equipped with fancy guest quarters. She was converted to a seIf-unloader in 1956 for the "Bradley" fleet and was repowered with a Nordberg diesel engine in 1968. She passed to the Lower Lakes Towing interests in 2001, which definitely prolonged her life. But hard work over the years, and especially in the salt trade in recent years, had caused her hull to deteriorate, and it had been decided that she would be retired and scrapped at the end of this season. However, on November 15, she struck a con­ crete wall in the Old River at Cleveland after unloading a stone cargo and while heading to pick up a load of salt. Damage was occasioned to her starboard side and the decision was made to retire the ship immediately rather than waiting until the end of the season. CALUMET departed Cleveland late on November 18 and proceeded under her own power to Port Colborne. Arriving there the next morning, she passed down through Lock 8, then turned and was moored at the Humberstone stone dock while the owners removed equipment they wanted. On the afternoon of the 20th, she passed back up through the lock and, with the help of the Nadro tugs VIGILANT 1 and SEAHOUND, she was put to rest at the south scrapping berth of International Marine Salvage. CALUMET thus becomes the first freighter scrapped out of the Lower Lakes / Grand River fleet. Another vessel retired this year was the steamer RESERVE of KK Integrated Shipping LLC., of Menominee, Michigan. Since KK acquired her from the Oglebay Norton fleet, she had been operated as a self-propelled ship, although the intention was that she eventually would be cut down to a barge and pushed by the tug VICTORY, which came to the lakes last year. RESERVE was running again in 2007 but labour difficulties supposedly were encountered, and it was decided to do the conversion immediately. RESERVE arrived at Menominee under her own power on August 1, and work immediately got under way. Much of her stern already has been cut away and work on the construction of the towing notch is progressing. Eventually her forward cabins also will be removed, as they were on BUCKEYE which the same owner con­ verted to the barge LEWIS J. KUBER in 2006. At long last, it appears that Algoma Central's largest bulk carrier, the 1978-built seIf- unloader ALGOBAY, idle at Toronto since 2002, will be rebuilt and returned to service. It was announced in early November that Algoma, together with Upper Lakes Shipping, had con­ tracted for the construction of a new forebody for ALGOBAY as well as one for the 1979-built ALGOPORT. Unfortunately, neither will be built at a lake shipyard. Instead, the forebodies will be built at Jiangyin, China, by the Chengxi Shipyard Co. Ltd., the work to cost some $125 million. We gather that the joining, etc., will be done in Canada. It is hoped that ALGOBAY will be back in operation by December of 2009, and ALGOPORT by September of 2010. That's not the only construction that Algoma will be doing. We already have reported that Algoma Tankers has bought two tankers under construction in Turkey, and will be having three tankers built in China. Then, in mid-November, it was announced that two additional salt-water tankers would be built for Algoma in China by Nantong Mindge Heavy Industry Stock Co. Ltd. They will be larger, at 25000 DWT. All five Chinese-built tankers will be operated by Hanseatic Tankers, a consortium of Algoma, Bernhard Schulte Group, and Sloman Neptun and Intrepid Shipping LLC. The two Turkish-built boats are for the Canadian trade, while the Chinese-built ships will be based in Europe. It was confirmed at the beginning of November that the United States Steel Corporation had completed its $1. 2 billion acquisition of Stelco Inc.. The new Canadian firm will be known as U. S. Steel Canada Inc. Stelco has operated extensive steel-making plants at both Hamilton and Nanticoke, and it would appear that the new owner intends to maintain production in Canada, as well as at its various locations in the United States. As well as the steel plants, Stelco had a 14. 7 percent ownership share in Hibbing Taconite, a taconite production facility on the Minnesota iron range. Continued on Page 11.