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Marine News - c o n t ' d . Bay for use in this trade. We also are given to understand will enter service early in 1997 under the name PML 2501. that 4. the barge There have been some notable developments in the fleet of McKeil Marine Ltd., of Hamilton, in recent months. A recent acquisition has been the Italian tug VORTICE, (a) MUSKETEER FURY (79), (b) TENDER PANTHER (80), (c) MARGARITA, which was built in 1976 by Mangone Shipbuilding Co. at Houston, Texas. This tug is 142. 16 x 39. 01 x 20. 24, 499 Gross, and is powered by two 20-cylinder GMC diesel engines. She suffered fire damage in Italy in 1993 and has not yet been repaired. She has, however, set off on her delivery voyage to Canada, under tow of the Panamanian-registered tug JOHN SALTON, reportedly owned by Thomas Payette of the Lower Lakes Towing Company. The SALTON herself is a stranger to these parts. In our Mid-Summer issue, we reported the McKeil purchase of the 108-foot, 1978-built ARCTIC SURVEYOR for use on the Prince Edward Island bridge pr o ject. We indicated that she had been renamed (b) BLAIR McKEIL, but we since have learned that her new name is, in fact, BLAIN (yes, that is the proper spelling) McKEIL. The lightering barge D. C. EVEREST has been returned by McKeil from Valleyfield, Quebec, to Hamilton. She was towed back to McKeil's home port recently by the tugs OTIS WACK and GLENEVIS. Also reported recently at the McKeil yard at Hamilton was the self-unloading barge CSL TRILLIUM, and the tug FEUILLE D'ERABLE (C. 398291), (a) FOUNDATION VICEROY, Hull 635 out of the Davie yard at Lauzon, was in tow to Hamilton during the next-last week of October, behind McKeil's ROBERT B. NO. 1, after lying idle since 1992. The two small McKeil tugs WILLMAC and FLO-MAC, built at Burlington in 1959 and 1960, respectively, have been sent to the Powell shipyard at Port Maitland, Ontario, for refurbishing. We understand that this work, the latest in a series of upgradings for existing McKeil tugs, will be finished over the winter months. The 1970 and 1971-built pusher-tugs PHYLLIS YORKE and MARGARET YORKE, which towed the C. N. carferry barges ST. CLAIR and SCOTIA II, respectively, on the old ferry crossing between Sarnia and Port Huron, and which McKeil Marine Ltd. acquired early in 1996, have now been resold, reportedly for use in Nigeria. The McKeil towing fleet appeared to have use for the two carferry barges (and former steamers), but observers had been wondering what the company could possibly do with these two 99-foot, Wheatley-built pushertugs. They were down the Seaway October 2 in tow of GLENEVIS and GLENBROOK. The Algoma Central Corporation's "Interim Report to Shareholders for the Six Months Ended June 30, 1996 and 1995", reported as follows: "We previously announced that the the Corporation had contracted with a shipyard in Poland for the construction of two ocean-going vessels. Unfortunately, the shipyard filed for bankruptcy in June, 1996. As a result, we terminated the contracts with the shipyard and incurred a cost of $731, 000, net after income taxes, on forward contracts for U . S. dollars which were intended to partially hedge our related foreign-currency r isk . " So the Algoma fleet will not be running two Gdansk-built bulk carriers on salt water. The former Davie shipyard at Lauzon (now Levis), Quebec, has finally changed hands, after efforts by the Quebec government to dispose of the facility. All the shares of Groupe MIL Inc., owner of the MIL-Davie shipyard, were acquired in June by Dominion Bridge, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Cedar Group Canada Inc., which reportedly intends to concentrate on the construc tion of drilling platforms and container cranes. This is Canada's oldest shipbuilding facility, and for many years it built maximum Seaway-sized bulk carriers for various Canadian lake ship operators. It is not yet known w h e ther the yard will be available for new construction in the event that Cana dian fleets seek the building of new Seaway-sized bottoms. The new name of the shipyard is Industries Davie.