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Dragon - cont'd. 12. in order to help in the towing and get more bite into her wheel. Gradually, she picked up speed; at first it seemed only to be an inch a minute, and then it was a little more, but it still was slow. At this point in time, I had to leave the show. A ten-year-old boy had to be in bed by nine o'clock, even in the summertime and with no school to face the next day'. The following morning, when breakfast dishes were cleared away, I scooted down to the Eastern Gap on my bike. Behind the inner east wall of the gap there was a slip, and there the DRAGON ROUGE was moored with her scows, and with ERL KING and SAM KING alongside, like a hen and her chicks. Repairs to the dredge took about two weeks. They had to put in a new spud, but the dip per arm and the boom were not all that badly damaged and only needed to be straightened out. Once the repairs were completed, ERL KING towed DRAGON ROUGE back out into the Eastern Gap and the dredging resumed. As a result of the accident, an enquiry was held, and the master of CAYUGA was found to have been at fault for failing to exercise caution as his steam er approached the dredge. DRAGON ROUGE had been anchored in place by her spuds and could not get out of the w a y . I never heard about the settlement of the damage claims, but I would think that CAYUGA's owners would have had to pay the shot. Her master was "retired" after thirty years as captain and never again sailed another ship. A lesson to be learned here: one mistake can be very costly... At the time of the incident, the captain of ERL KING was Hugh Ross from Port Robinson, and Sam MacDonald of Goderich was engineer. Both were very fine men and were receptive to a ten-year-old boy who asked a lot of questions. Later I got rides with them on the tug as they went out with the scows on the lake. Perhaps this strengthened my love for the Great Lakes and for sailing. ERL KING lasted up into the 1950s, when she was dismantled and her hull sunk off the Island Airport. DRAGON ROUGE met a similar fate. Both vessels had been built in Toronto, ERL KING in 1909 and DRAGON ROUGE in 1908. ERL KING had a second-hand engine in her; this was common, for as a wooden hull wore out, the engine would be put into a new hull. Sometimes an engine would out last three or four hulls. An afterthought about spuds: During World War Two, the Allies built a lot of square end barges, and equipped them with four spuds, one on each corner of the barge. Hundreds of these barges were built and then towed to the coast of France. There they were set in place with their spuds, thus forming tem porary harbours, docks and piers where ships could land troops and supplies. The process was code-named "Operation Mulberry" and was successfully used in the invasion of France. The idea which was spawned on the Great Lakes served to help bring about the end of the war. * * * Ed. Note: We sincerely thank John Leonard for permission to use in "Scanner" this adapted version of an article which he wrote for the November 1 9 89 is sue of "Boiler Bulletin". We thought it so interesting a piece of lake his tory that we should let our readers share it. The tug ERL KING (C.126270) was built at Toronto in 1909, 52.0 x 14 .5 x 8.0, 4 6 Gross and 25 Net. She had a composite hull, with metal frames and wood planking. The wooden-hulled DRAGON ROUGE (C .125976) was constructed at To ronto in 1908 and was 86.0 x 22.6 x 7 .9 , 213 Net Tons. Both were built for the famous Toronto contractor and vessel operator, John E. Russell. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, they were registered to Kilmer, Gibson & Van Nostrand, but then they reverted to the ownership of the Russell Construc tion Company Ltd., Toronto, and both finished out their days under that ow nership. DRAGON ROUGE retained her interesting and appropriate name (like most Russell vessels, her cabins were painted red) throughout her long life, but ERL KING was twice renamed, becoming (b) R.C.C0. TUG NO. 4 and later (c) R.C.L. TUG NO. 4. DRAGON ROUGE was dismantled at Toronto in 1952, and much of her equipment