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7. Ship of the Mon th - cont'd. stations where each ship w ould blow a sp ecial series of wh istle bl asts to i d e ntify herself. SINA L O A had but one single whistle, a large single chamber carried right at the upper silver band on the stack and painted silver it self to match. We know of only one accident in w hich SINA L O A was invol v e d at this stage of her career. The "Marine Review", Cl eveland, of Janu a r y 28, 1909, repor t e d that, on D e c ember 4, 1908, SINA L O A had run aground, during a thick s n o w storm, at Bar Point, Lake Erie. The ship was relea s e d after some 300 tons of coal had been l i ghtered out of her, and she r e p o r t e d l y s u s tained no damage. As the years passed, the in signia on SI NALOA's bows changed, the "pennant" be coming instead a large diamond, in the same yel l o w (upper half) and blue (lower) colours, but with ou t the white circle or red letter. Sometime before the outset of the First W orld War, however, the bow m a r k i n g d i s a p p e a r e d completely, and the silver bands on the stack be came muc h wider. In addition, after S I N A L O A had be en in service for only a few years, the long and d e corative hinged spear pole was removed and r e p l a c e d by a fixed, up right steering pole set at the stem. Be tween 1905 and 1910, her port of re g i s t r y was ch anged from West Bay City to Duluth. SINA L O A u n derwent very few maj or changes duri ng the years of her T o m l i n s o n ownership. In 1914, she re ceived a tho ro ug h reb ui ld at the Lor ai n yar d of the A m e r i c a n Ship Buil di ng Company, at w h i c h time she was fitte d w ith new arch hull brac ing and a new deck (with, we believe, the same hatch configuration). It was p r o b a b l y at the same time that she was given a new upper pilothouse, but not one of the f l i m s y - l o o k i n g type that some steamers received. SINALOA's new p i lothouse was a large and substa n t i a l structure, wit h the door in the back, and thirt ee n big wi ndows down the sides and across the front, the last three win do ws on each side being a bit smaller than the others. (I nt erestingly, SINA L O A w ould keep this upper p i lothouse for the rest of her long life, the only changes in later years be ing the a d d iti on of a sunviso r and a ca twalk arou nd the front of the h o u s e . ) SINALO A co nt inued to operate (a pp arently su cc es sfully) for the Tom l i n s o n i n terests until F e b r u a r y of 1924, at which time she was sold to the Clif t o n T r a n s p o r t a t i o n Company, whi ch was one of the o p e rating com pa ni es w h i c h had been i n c o r porated by Capt. F. A. Bail ey and his var io us associates. The funds for the d o w n - p a y m e n t on SI NALOA a p p a r e n t l y came from the sale of the wha l e b a c k steamer CLIFTON, (a) SA MUEL MA T H E R ( I I ) (23), which had been owned by Capt. Bailey's group since late in 1922 and whi ch was sold early in 1924 to the Progress Ste amship Company. (CLIFTON, un fo rt un ately, was lost with all hands on Lake H u r o n in Se ptember of 1 9 2 4 . ) Almost im m e d i a t e l y after her purchase, SINA L O A was re named (b) W I L L I A M F. RAPPRICH, and her home port became Cleveland. Later in 1924, there was a r e grouping of the ship pi ng inte re st s of Capt. Bailey, and all of the vess el s which he operated were t r a n s ferred to the o w n ership of the "parent" Forest City Steamship Company, of Cleveland. For a while, this ve nture was a profita ble one but, by 1927, fi na ncial rever se s were encountered, whi ch event u a l l y doom ed the Forest City fleet. The Superior Stea ms hi p Comp a n y f orecl osed on its m o r tgage on the W I L L I A M F. RAPPRICH, and the Tom l i n s o n fleet re p o s s e s s e d the steamer. As a consequence, the ship was given back her old name, be coming (c) SI NALOA in 1928, and the Sup er io r S t eamship Co mpany re turned her port of re gistry to Duluth. Later in 1928, T o m l i n s o n t ransferred the o w nership of SINA L O A to another of its affiliates, the M i c h i g a n St eamship Company, of Detroit, and the steamer was r e - r e g i s t e r e d at Detroit, Michigan. As well, in 1928, SI NALOA was sent to the St urgeon Bay, Wisconsin, yard of the Leat h a m D. Smith S h i p b u i l d i n g Company, wh ere she was conv er te d into a s e l f -unloader of the t u n nel-scraper type. Her holds were rebuilt so that cargo fed d o w nward through gates into two 300-fo o t - l o n g tunnels. There, the materia l was dr agged forwa rd to the e l e vating equipment by means of two 10c u bic-yard mechanical scrapers, op erated by two S a u erman st eam-powered