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5. Marine News - cont'd. Another Socanav (QMT Navigation I n c . ) tanker changing colours is LE BRAVE, (a) TEXACO-BRAVE (II) (87), but she will remain under the Canadian flag. She was only chartered to Socanav, her ownership remaining with Imperial Oil Limited since Imperial's acquisition of Texaco Canada Inc. LE BRAVE had car ried Ultramar products from St. Romuald, Quebec, to Montreal, but Socanav recently lost the Ultramar float and no longer needs LE BRAVE. Imperial Oil has taken back the ship and will operate her as part of its own fleet. No new name is yet given for the 1977-built ship. Meanwhile, A. G. FARQUHARSON, (a) TEXACO CHIEF (II) (87), continues to run in the lakes under charter from Imperial to Socanav. The 96-year-old Buffalo firetug EDWARD M. COTTER, (a) W. S. GRATTAN (53), (b) FIREFIGHTER (53), which since 1992 no longer operates as a fireboat but still is used to break ice in Buffalo Harbour and to squirt water on cere monial occasions, has been designated a National Historic Landmark. The d e signation was celebrated on July 4th as part of Buffalo's International Friendship Festival. The 65-foot yacht FREE AT LAST was destroyed by fire on May 22 when she was up on the Toronto Drydock's small dock, THE SYDENHAM. The fire was extin guished by the fireboat WM. LYON MACKENZIE, which was to be retired and sold last year but is still very much in service. She did icebreaking duty during the winter and this spring was drydocked when lifted from the Poison Street slip by the Harbour Commission crane "Atlas". Apparently the city has found that the 1964-built, 81-foot firetug does not have the resale value that had been anticipated! The U . S. Army Corps of Engineers has brought into the lakes two more former Navy tugs similar to the NATCHITOCHES which arrived last year. The 109-foot CHERAW was upbound in the Seaway on April 18, bound for Buffalo, while her sister tug CHETEK made the upbound passage on May 16th. McKeil Marine Ltd. has acquired two more tugs. One is the 108-foot, 1978built ARCTIC SURVEYOR, while the other is the 169-foot, 1970-built supply tug MAMMOTH, purchased from the Penrod Drilling Company. ARCTIC SURVEYOR has been renamed (b) BLAIR McKEIL, while MAMMOTH is now (b) DOUG McKEIL. Both tugs made one trip up to Hamilton but then returned to Borden, Prince Edward Island, to work on the P. E. I. bridge project. Meanwhile, McKeil has moved to Hamilton the former Canadian National carferry barges SCOTIA II and ST. CLAIR, and their companion tugs MARGARET YORKE and PHYLLIS YORKE. The tows down from Sarnia were done during May by McKeil's PAUL E. NO. 1, ROBERT B. NO. 1 and ATOMIC. This was A T O M I C 's first work after her recent repowering at Port Maitland. An amendment to the Ocean Shipping Reform Act passed by the U . S. Congress in the spring could eventually result in a tug-barge operation out of Ontona gon, Michigan. The bill would allow the U . S. Navy to transfer six retired CHEROKEE-Class tugs to the Northeast Wisconsin Railroad Transportation Com mission, which would then lease them to the Escanaba and Lake Superior R ail road Company for shipping "between the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Cana da". The tugs, which the Navy had intended to scrap, were built between 1943 and 1945. The report did not specify what kind of trade there might be be tween the U . P. and Ontario. The official first load of trap rock shipped by water out of Bruce Mines, Ontario, was a 23, 000 tonne cargo loaded on May 23rd into the C. S. L. self unloader FRONTENAC for delivery to Toronto. The actual first load was taken by the barge CHIEF WAWATAM to Mackinac Island in the fall of 1995. The former Corps of Engineers tug OSPREY, which J. W. Purvis Marine Ltd. ac quired in 1995 and recently has repowered, reportedly will be used at Bruce Mines to assist freighters loading there. Two former Toronto party, boats returned to the port recently. Mariposa Cruise Line L t d . 's 144-foot CAPT. MATTHEW FLINDERS ran on Toronto Bay from