The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

7. Ship of the Month - cont'd. debt, although in reality she was named for Frank A. Augsbury, of the Hall Corporation - followed Hall's aberrant five-ship LEECLIFFE HALL (I) series of steamers of 1947-1950 that had aped late-1920s construction. (Apparently, the company's engineering services department had no diesel experience and, until into the 1950s, had no desire to acquire any! ) However, the new FRANK CLIFFE HALL's "cubics" represented a 27 percent improvement over the best of her under-achieving steam-powered colleagues. The Hall Corporation continued its fleet modernization efforts by building two near-sisters to FRANKCLIFFE HALL, and this pair felt the water at the Vickers yard in the spring of 1954, HUTCHCLIFFE HALL (Yard No. 261) on 19th April, and EASTCLIFFE HALL (Yard No. 262) three weeks later. Each of these ships cost just over Canadian $1, 300, 000 to construct. Sponsoring the new EASTCLIFFE HALL at her modest launching ceremony on Mon day, May 10, 1954, was Mrs. Henri Lamoureux, whose husband had been Hall Corporation's vice-president for operations. The ship was completed quickly and she was delivered to her owners on May 25, 1954. Enrolled at Montreal, her official number was 195604. Her maiden voyage took her upbound light to Walkerville (Windsor), Ontario, to load corn for the Canada Starch Company's plant at Cardinal. Her master was Capt. James Ross Sinclair, of Toronto, 57-year-old senior captain of the Hall fleet, who had sailed AYCLIFFE HALL (1928) until she sank in Lake Erie on June 11, 1936, after a collision with the upper laker EDWARD J. BER WIND. J. Albert Dion was EASTCLIFFE HALL's chief engineer on her maiden voyage. In dimensions, EASTCLIFFE HALL was representative of her breed. She measured 259 feet in overall length (252 feet, 5 inches between perpendiculars), with 43 feet, 6 inches beam moulded at the bilge. Beam at the deck was 43 feet, 10 inches, giving her that peculiar reverse tumblehome that was prompted by the idiosyncratic masonry of old Lock 17 of the Cornwall Canal. Her moulded depth was 20 feet, 9 inches. Tonnage was 2139 Gross, 1591 Net. In respect of aesthetics, opinions vary concerning EASTCLIFFE HALL and her sisters. Some observers feel that the quest for cubics overwhelmed aesthe tics and that the ships' purposeful lines lacked the grace of earlier, "classic" canallers, such as the C. S. L. package freighters. Others feel that the new canallers successfully merged traditional and contemporary features. If their cruiser sterns lacked delicacy and grace, they were neat and emi nently practical. EASTCLIFFE HALL's all-steel hull had very little sheer and was of welded construction, except for the sheerstrake, and commenced with the usual bluff bow and vertical stem. The forecastle was full-topgallant and the forecastle head featured closed steel bulwark along most of its length. The anchors were stowed in rectangular pockets with slightly-rounded upper corners. The interior of the forecastle contained accommodations for the chief mate in one stateroom (with space for a pilot, if needed), the second and third mates in another, and additional rooms for three watchmen and four deck hands, respectively. Bosun's store and master gyrocompass were located in the flat one deck below, just above the forepeak ballast tank. The anchor windlass and snubbing winch were set on the forecastle head, along with a small ventilator cowl. The rectangular texas cabin, broad but very shallow, housed the master's ac commodations and had five portholes facing forward. A wooden door on the starboard side, behind a steel dodger, provided the only access or egress, a fact that gave pause to at least one of her captains since the door would swell and bind when it was wet, sometimes opening only with much difficulty. The nicely-proportioned rectangular pilothouse stood on the bridge deck above, its very slightly curved forward face overhanging the texas. It pro vided excellent outward visibility, with five large windows facing forward,