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

3. Marine News - cont'd. A sixth 730-foot laker will be making the voyage to the breakers very soon, but part of this ship will live on. The Paterson straight-decker COMEAUDOC, (a) MURRAY BAY (ii)(63), a 1960 product of the Collingwood shipyard, has been idle at Montreal since 1996. It was announced during mid-May that Lower Lakes Towing Ltd., Port Dover, had acquired COMEAUDOC and that her main en­ gine would be removed for possible installation in L. L. T . 's seIf-unloader SAGINAW. At the time of this writing, COMEAUDOC was scheduled to leave Mont­ real under tow on August 19th, bound for Port Colborne. Once the engine has been removed, the hull of COMEAUDOC will be scrapped by International Marine Salvage. MURRAY BAY/COMEAUDOC was built with steam turbine machinery, but she was repowered over the winter of 1985-1986 with an 8, 162 h. p. M. A. K. 6- cylinder diesel engine. SAGINAW currently is powered by her original DeLaval cross-compound steam turbine. All of the vessels of the former Paterson fleet now have been sold. It be­ came apparent during May that the registry of WINDOC (ii) had been changed to show her owner as Le Groupe Ocean Inc., of Quebec City. It would appear that Groupe Ocean will utilize WINDOC as a barge, although in what capacity is not yet known, nor is it known when she will be towed away from Hamilton. WINDOC, (a) RHINE ORE (76), (b) STEELCLIFFE HALL (88) was involved in the infamous altercation with the Allanburg Bridge on the Welland Canal on August 11, 2001, and was blown across Hamilton Harbour in a severe windstorm on March 10th. The rancorous litigation over the bridge incident is still under way, and examinations for discovery were held during early August. An interesting sidebar to the sale of the Paterson shipping interests in­ volved a number of items that had been stolen from QUEDOC and VANDOC during their more than ten years of idleness. Those items included the bells of both ships. After an appeal via the local Crime Stoppers, VANDOC's bell and a ship's clock were recovered and returned to the Paterson family. It was announced at the beginning of August that the Algoma Central Corpora­ tion has let the contract for the construction of new tanker for its fleet. To be built not in Canada but by the Jiangnan Shipyard at Shanghai, China, the tanker will be 453. 4 feet in length b. p. (488. 2 feet overall), 78 feet in the beam and 42 feet in depth, and about 12, 000 Gross Tons. She is expected to be delivered during the summer of 2004 and will serve primarily on the Canadian east coast. She will replace the single-hulled ALGOFAX, (a) IMPERIAL BEDFORD (97), which was built by Davie Shipbuilding at Lauzon in 1969. No name has yet been announced for the new tanker. Too late for mention in our May issue came the entry into service of the Mc­ Keil tank barge McCLEARY'S SPIRIT, the former LE VENT, which is handled by the McKeil tug WILLIAM J. MOORE, the former ALICE A., primarily in the jet fuel trade. The orange-hulled pair departed Hamilton on their first trip on May 11. The vessels' names honour the venerable Thorold firm of Moore McCleary Limited, a longtime business client of the McKeil organization. The McCLEARY'S SPIRIT name refers to the battle by 31-year-old Bill McCleary, Jr., against cancer that was diagnosed in July of 2001. On May 20th, the rebuilt ("hipped" or "bustled") ULS Corporation seIf- unloader JOHN D. LEITCH, the former (a) CANADIAN CENTURY, departed Port Wel­ ler Dry Docks for her sea trials on Lake Ontario. After the trials, she re­ turned to Port Weller and, during the evening of the 20th, she began her first trip through the canal, upbound to load coal. The ship's reconstruc­ tion cost approximately $25 million. It may have improved her cargo capacity and extended her life, but it did nothing for the ship's appearance... A former Toronto excursion vessel is now operating at Montreal. She is the LADY N . , (a) GLADYS M. SIMPSON (95), which had spent the last several years atop the pier on the south side of the Ship Channel, just outside the Cherry Street bridge. Built in 1971 at Collingwood, she was purchased this spring by Productions Absolu St-Laurent Inc., which renamed her (c) L'ECLUSIER and took her to Montreal.