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3. Marine News - cont'd. Guard announced in late April that the 1944-built SUNDEW, stationed at Du­ luth, will be donated to the city of Duluth following her May decommission­ ing. SUNDEW reportedly will be placed on display near the museum ship WIL­ LIAM A. IRVIN and former Engineers' tug LAKE SUPERIOR. Meanwhile, there continues to be uncertainty in respect of what will become of the famous icebreaker U. S. C. G. MACKINAW when she is decommissioned in 2006 after the appearance of her replacement which will be constructed by Marinette Marine. It was thought that the city of Cheboygan, Michigan, where MACKINAW long has been home-ported, would be the natural home of the decom­ missioned ship, but the city has turned down that possibility based on the cost of maintaining the ship after her retirement. The city apparently is hoping that private citizen groups may come together to fund the preserva­ tion of the lakes' most famous icebreaker. On April 9, the U. S. Surface Transportation Board approved the proposed purchase of Great Lakes Transportation (including the Great Lakes Fleet) by the Canadian National Railway, and the deal is expected to be completed during May. The acquisition is all about CN acquiring a short section of the Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range Railway that will connect CN's operations in Canada with its U. S. rails composed of the Wisconsin Central and Illinois Central roads. Whether it will retain control of the Great Lakes Fleet will remain to be seen. Great Lakes Fleet, the last remnant of the once-proud Pittsburgh Steamship Company, lake shipping arm of the United States Steel Corp., presently consists of eight ships: ARTHUR M. ANDERSON, ROGER BLOUGH, CASON J. CALLAWAY, PHILIP R. CLARKE, EDWIN H. GOTT, JOHN G. MUNSON, PRESQUE ISLE and EDGAR B. SPEER. After the purchase, the Great Lakes Fleet will be operated for CN by Keystone Great Lakes Inc., of Bala Cynwyd, Penn­ sylvania, which currently operates the tug-barge tanker combination MICHI­ GAN/GREAT LAKES. Readers will recall that the former Chicago firetug JOSEPH MEDILL spent over a year at Algoma, Wisconsin, all stripped out and waiting to be sunk as a dive site off Algoma. However, this spring, the D. N. R. denied her owners permission to sink her (for reasons not made public), and during the early morning hours of April 10, she was towed from Algoma to Sturgeon Bay, and shortly thereafter she was towed to Escanaba, where she awaits an uncertain future. On April 5, crews at the Toledo Shipyard laid the first steel plate in the construction of a 391-foot, double-hulled tank barge which the Manitowoc Ma­ rine Group is building for Hornbeck Offshore Services Inc., delivery being scheduled for November. This is the first ship to be wholly built at the To­ ledo facility in many years. The shipyard is owned by the Toledo-Lucas Coun­ ty Port Authority and is operated by Toledo Shiprepair, a subsidiary of the Manitowoc Marine Group. Meanwhile, the Toledo yard is facing some $10 mil­ lion in renovation and upgrading of its facilities. The first of the three big ferries that Marinette Marine (another subsidiary of the Manitowoc Marine Group) is building for the Staten Island service at New York City, named GUY V. MOLINARI, has not yet left the shipyard, but New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg already has announced the names of the next two ferries in the series. The second ferry, currently scheduled to be laun­ ched on Saturday, May 8th, will be christened SEN. JOHN J. MARCHI, honouring a native Staten Islander who has served in the New York State Senate since 1971. The third of the ferries will be christened THE SEPTEMBER 11th, a name which needs no explanation for anyone. The new ferries will replace the "Kennedy Class" ferries which were new when we first saw them in the 1960s but which now are almost 40 years old. CONTINUED - Page 12