Maritime History of the Great Lakes

Scanner, v. 36, no. 9 (Mid-Summer 2004), p. 10

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Ship of the Month - cont'd. 10. The WOLVIN was, however, a "fringe" boat in the Interlake fleet, and by the 1960s she no longer was needed in the upper lake ore trade. She lay idle at Erie, Pennsylvania, from 1960 through the 1965 season. But late in 1965, In­ terlake formed a new Canadian subsidiary, the Labrador Steamship Company Li­ mited, Montreal (managed by the Sutcliffe Shipping Company Limited), for the specific purpose of transporting iron ore up into the lakes from mines in the Lake Wabush area of Labrador, the ore being transported overland and loaded into ships at Pointe Noire, Quebec. Interlake transferred two venerable steamers, the SAMUEL MATHER (iv) of 1926, renamed (b) POINTE NOIRE, and AUGUSTUS B. WOLVIN to the Labrador affiliate, acquired one more vessel (the former Papachristidis DON-DE-DIEU, renamed [b] V. W. SCULLY), and built one new maximum-sized laker (A. S. GLOSSBRENNER) for the Labrador fleet. In respect of the WOLVIN, it was in February of 1966 that the United States Maritime Commission gave its approval for the steamer to be transferred out to Canadian registry. She was enrolled at Montreal under Canadian official number 326401 (not 325401 as at least one source has reported), and she was in service by April of 1966. Her tonnage was shown on the Canadian register as 8316 Gross and 5395 Net. She was given a nice new coat of paint and the only major change in her livery was that on the orange band on her stack appeared a black ring inside of which was a large black letter 'L'. Neither the Interlake Steamship Company name, nor the Pickands Mather traditional yin-yang logo appeared on the bow of the WOLVIN, although the PM whistle light continued to be carried high on her foremast. AUGUSTUS B. WOLVIN was not to serve the Labrador Steamship Company for long, however. On June 24, 1967, she suffered bottom damage when she scraped a bank in the Welland Canal, and when she was drydocked at Port Weller on July 3rd, 1967, it was quickly determined that the damage at the turn of the bilge was sufficiently extensive that it would be uneconomical to repair the 63-year-old steamer. She was taken off the drydock and proceeded under her own power to Hamilton, where she was laid up. The wounded WOLVIN was not to linger long, however, for the scrap metal trade was hot and many old lakers were being sent to overseas scrapyards. She soon was sold to Marine Salvage Ltd., Port Colborne, which resold her to Spanish shipbreakers. She was towed from Hamilton by the Sin-Mac tug GRAEME STEWART and, assisted on the stern by SINMAC, the tow was downbound at Iro­ quois in the Seaway on August 27, 1967. She was picked up at Quebec City by the Polish deep-sea tug JANTAR, which took her across the North Atlantic in tandem tow with a former Paterson steamer, the 1899-1900-built SASKADOC, (a) WILLIAM E. REIS (16), (b) URANUS (ii)(26), which herself had spent a decade in the service of the Interlake Steamship Company. The pair arrived safely at Santander, Spain, on September 24, 1967, following which both vessels soon were quickly dismantled. At the time of her demise, few observers recalled that when she was built, AUGUSTUS B. WOLVIN had been the largest vessel on the lakes, if not the prettiest, and one that had attracted much attention from the public as well as from the press all around the Great Lakes. * * * Ed. Note: We are grateful for the extensive writings of the late John H. Bascom and James M. Kidd in respect of AUGUSTUS B. WOLVIN. We would also acknowledge an article entitled "The Coming of the Yellow Monster" by Rich­ ard Gebhart, which appeared in the Nov. -Dec. 1991 issue of "Telescope", the bi-monthly publication of the Great Lakes Maritime Institute, Detroit. The maiden Soo lockage clipping comes courtesy of Randy Johnson. If anyone has a photo of the WOLVIN on her maiden Soo transit, we would be grateful for a print, as at least one of those many photographs must have survived.

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