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

5. Marine News - cont'd. and OAKGLEN (the latter enjoying a short rest at Toronto when the deal was done) have been given CSL stack colours, but will retain their black hulls. Each will operate at least until she next comes due for survey and inspection, at which time her future will be addressed. Herbert Heimbecker was the impetus behind P&H's lake ship operations, and when he passed away last year, the firm lost its interest in the boats. The OAKGLEN, of course, is the ship returning to the CSL fold after spending many previous years with that fleet as the McLAGAN. After spending the last few years turning out a string of buoy tenders of two classes for the U. S. Coast Guard (the latest two being MAPLE and SYCAMORE), the Marinette Marine Corp. has won an amazing $119 million contract to build three 4,500-passenger and 30-vehicle ferries for New York's Staten Island service. The ferries will replace three boats of the KENNEDY class. Completion of the first ferry is due 600 days after the con­ tract is in place, the second 120 days after the completion of the first, and the same time frame required for the third. Marinette's bid was substan­ tially less than the next higher bidder. Arriving at Montreal from Rimouski on May 14 was the former Manitoulin Is­ land ferry NINDAWAYMA, in tow of the tugs CARROL C 1 and BONNIE B. III. NINDAWAYMA was sold to the Groupe Verreault in 2000 for conversion to a cable ship, but when that contract was cancelled, Verreault decided to take the ship to Montreal in an effort to attract a new buyer. A few days later, another passenger ship, the VILLE MARIE II, (a) LAVIOLETTE (76), (b) BLUE WATER BELLE (81), (c) CALEDONIA (83), was towed from Montreal to Sorel for scrapping by Multi Recyclage, of Laval, Quebec. It would appear that the 1884-built former railroad carferry LANSDOWNE may get a new lease on life after kicking around various Lake Erie ports after her use as a floating restaurant at Detroit ended in 1992. She presently is lying at Erie and is owned by Specialty Restaurants Corp., of Anaheim, Cali­ fornia. Specialty plans to spend almost $2 million to refurbish LANSDOWNE as a restaurant and banquet hall, and has taken for her a 25-year lease on the Sassafras Street wharf at Erie. To make way for LANSDOWNE, the idle former Lake Michigan carferry VIKING I must move. It would seem that there are renewed plans to use her on a Cleveland to Port Stanley service, the most recent proponent of such a pro­ ject being a Michigan firm known as Inland Ocean Lines. It claims to have considerable support for such a service but so far has offered Contessa Cruise Lines (owner of VIKING I) far less than what Contessa is asking for the ship. The last such effort, made by the defunct Port Stanley Cleveland Ferry Corp., ended when Contessa repossessed VIKING I in 1996, and Port Stanley residents are naturally skeptical of another ferry scheme. Another ship with a renewed future is the 1903-built Inland Lakes Management cement carrier J. B. FORD, (a) EDWIN F. HOLMES (16), (b) E. C. COLLINS (59), which since 1989 has been a storage hull at the Lafarge cement plant at South Chicago. No longer needed there, she was taken in tow on May 30 by the G-tug MISSOURI, which late on June 5th delivered her to the Lafarge plant at Superior, Wisconsin. There she is expected to be needed as a storage hull for at least ten years. The FORD last operated in 1985. Whilst unloading coal at Nanticoke on June 24, the ULS seIf-unloader CANA­ DIAN TRANSPORT suffered a serious engineroom fire, apparently due to the rupture of a fuel line. Crew members fought the fire, as well as two shore fire departments, but the C02 fire suppression system had to be activated. CANADIAN TRANSPORT arrived at the Port Weller shipyard on June 26 in tow of PROGRESS, SEAHOUND and VAC, and at last report she was still there under­ going extensive repairs. Despite the idling of the TRANSPORT, CANADIAN TRANSFER was laid up at Sarnia from June 16 to August 19. The TRANSFER had to undergo repairs at Thunder Bay after a May 14 grounding at Goderich. Continued on Page 13