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Ship of the Month - cont'd. 10. down through the lock and, loaded much deeper than ASSINIBOIA, struck her bottom plating hard against the mitre sill of the lower gates. Ahead of her, the crew of ASSINIBOIA had finally managed to get their ship under control in the lower pool, and one of her anchors was dropped. The C. P. R. flagship then began to swing around on her hook and CRESCENT CITY, bearing down on her and with nowhere else to go, struck ASSINIBOIA twice as she passed. Tugs arrived on the scene quickly and they managed to catch the CRESCENT CITY's lines and haul her to a dock on the U. S. side, where the steamer settled to the bottom. ASSINIBOIA (strangely, the least damaged of the lot) and PERRY G. WALKER also were secured at the Michigan Soo, but they were allowed to proceed after inspection. No loss of life was suffered in the harrowing incident. It took twelve days for the Canadian Lock to be repaired and put back in operation. In comparison, only several days were required to refloat CRESCENT CITY. Using compressed air to keep her afloat, the ship was able to proceed downbound to Conneaut, Ohio, where her iron ore cargo was unloaded. She then was sent to the American Shipbuilding Company yard at Toledo, Ohio, where permanent repairs were completed. CRESCENT CITY had lost one of her anchors when she sideswiped ASSINIBOIA, and that anchor was recovered from the canal by the Pittsburgh Steamship Company's supply boat SUPERIOR (which sailors often called the "Gutwagon"), and it eventually was returned to CRESCENT CITY. The CRESCENT CITY was returned to service by the Pittsburgh Steamship Compa­ ny and, despite R. Harrison's comments to the contrary, we believe that she operated quite safely and successfully. By the time of World War One, she had been given an enclosed upper pilothouse built on the monkey's island. As with most such cabins added to lake steamers in that period, the new house was a rather flimsy affair, with its only entrance in its aft face. It was about the same shape as the turret lower cabin, had many small windows with a tiny sunvisor over them, and had no catwalk of any sort around its curved front. It provided what could best be described as rudimentary shelter. In 1922, the "Steel Trust" fleet gave CRESCENT CITY a refit. She received two new Babcock & Wilcox watertube boilers, whose four furnaces had a total grate surface of 104 square feet and a heating surface of 5, 353 square feet. Although much of her poop remained as open deck area, she was given a small steel boilerhouse and the coal bunker hatch was relocated atop the forward section of this house. We believe that it was also at this time that CRES­ CENT CITY was given a much larger steel pilothouse, although it was not until some years later that it was provided with an open-railed catwalk. Late in 1927, CRESCENT CITY was sold to the Consolidated Steamship Company, Cleveland, which was one of the many small corporations whose operations were managed by George Ashley Tomlinson. Consolidated was not formally in­ corporated until December 27, 1927, but the 1928 edition of "Merchant Ves­ sels of the United States" confirms that Consolidated was the registered owner of CRESCENT CITY, whose port of enrollment was shown as Cleveland. Tomlinson did not own her for long, however, for on June 9, 1928, he resold her to the Nicholson-Universal Steamship Company, of Wilmington, Delaware. Nicholson-Universal was a rather unusual entity in that it had been incorpo­ rated early in 1924 by various investors, including banker Fred L. Hewitt, and Capt. William Nicholson of the Nicholson Transit Company, Detroit. For three years, the firm owned no ships of its own but served mainly as a major financial supporter of Nicholson Transit. However, as a result of disagree­ ment amongst the shareholders, one of Hewitt's clients, the Universal Car- loading & Distributing Company, which had been a major investor in Nicholson-Universal from the beginning, acquired all of the common stock of Nicholson-Universal on February 19, 1927. Capt. William Nicholson and his group then retired from the firm and, although he kept his Nicholson Transit Company in operation, he had to agree not to transport automobiles by water