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Ship of the M o n t h - cont'd. 12. upper lake ports, w ith Capt. James Irwin on the bridge. She took the topper (or local equ iv alent) at Windsor, Sarnia, Owen Sound, G o d e r i c h and C o l l i n g wood. Over the winter of 1966-1967, while the entire rest of the Imperial lake fleet ( i ncluding the CORNWALL) w i n t e r e d at Sarnia, the W I N D S O R spent the wi nt er at the shipyard at Port Dalhousie. IM PE RI AL W I N D S O R spent most of the 1967 season runn i n g on Lake H u r o n with the CORNWALL, but she put in the whole 1968 season ope r a t i n g on the east coast, u s u a l l y ru nning into the various ports of N e w f oundland. She did, h o w ever, re tur n to the lakes for good at the end of that year. And in 1970, not only was she the first boat out of Impe r i a l ' s lay-up quarters at Sarnia in the spring, but she opened n a v i g a t i o n at Toronto on April 4th, wit h Capt. J. H. (Jim) Irwin again on her bridge. It was r e p orted that the old girl was so e lat ed by her feat that she popped a rivet in No. 4 tank! She set a real r eco rd at To ronto that year, for she became the first ship ever to both open and close n a v i g a t i o n in the same season at the port, slipping back into wi nte r qu ar te rs at 6 : 00 p. m. on J a n u a r y 8th, 1971. In the process, she logged the latest ever arrival for an Imperial Oil lake tanker going into winter quarters. The previous record, w hich the WI NDSOR beat by 13 hours and 10 minutes, had been set on J a n u a r y 8, 1944, by R O Y AL IT E (later [b] I M P ERIAL WELLAND). But when, a few months later, she fi tted out for 1971, it w o u l d be the b e g i n n i n g of her last year of Imperial Oil service for the WINDSOR. IM PE RI AL CORNWALL, of course, finished out her years of Imperial servic e by taking over the H a l i f a x b u n k e r i n g trade from the v e n e r a b l e barge I . O . LTD. No. 6. The C O R N W A L L served this trade from December, 1969, until her of fic ial re ti r e m e n t on F e b r u a r y 11, 1971, whe n she was r e p laced by the newly built IM PE R I A L DARTMOUTH. One observer recalls that the C O R N W A L L was not te rri bly well suited for her H a l i f a x bunkers duties. The tankers of her class may have p e r f o r m e d well in most things they did, but like most s i n g l e screw ships, they did not back up well. "It took forever to back her in alo ng si de ships tied up in the finger p i e r s . " The C O R N W A L L only traded b r i e f l y as (c) G O L D E N SABLE. It was in the summer of 1971, and she was o p e rated for the Golden Eagle R e f ining Company. A cl ipping taken from the Jul y 9, 1971, edition of the H a l i f a x "Mail Star" indicates that the ship soon found h e r s e l f in trouble. "Nine e m b i t t e r e d sailors are living aboard their d a r k e n e d tanker in Montreal harbour be c ause a dispute w it h the ship's owners has left them without enough m o n e y to go elsewhere. The ship, the 1 , 90 0-ton tanker G O L D E N SABLE, is sitting in ha rbour u nder a writ of seizure placed M o n d a y by the crew's legal counsel. "The crew is seeking back wages for the last month t o t alling $ 1 5 , 1 6 2 . 14. The ship's captain, Ri chard Edwards, spent W e d n e s d a y (July 7) wit h lawyers tr y ing to work out a settlement. But be cause the legal proceeding s with the ship's owners - Penn S h i p p i n g Ltd., of Guelph, Ont. - could take some time to solve, 13 of the ship's crew returned to H a l i f a x last Friday. "'They have families to feed. Most of them have p r o b a b l y shipped out with other lines by n o w , ' one of the rem a i n i n g seamen, W i l l i a m McMeechan, said. The nine r e m ained behind be cause of their faith in Capt. Edwards and because no pay for a m o n t h left no other choice but hang i n g on. "The ship lies a n c hored (sic) with its e n g i n e - r o o m silent. Without any power aboard, the nine holdouts are forced to live in the dark wi thout a water supply. 'It's miserable. We are down to a box of crackers be tween (sic) u s , ' said Mr. McMeechan, a 5 3 - y e ar-old oiler. The s h i pping firm could not be reached for comment late W e d n e s d a y . " The m e n t i o n of Penn Shipping would indicate that this was just before the ship was a c q u i r e d by M o t t e r s h e a d and MacLean, r e p r e s e n t i n g Neal Petroleum, a Golden Eagle subsidiary. She made only one voyage for Neal, a round trip b e tween Quebec City and Buffalo in August of 1971.