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Ship of the Month - cont'd. 8. on July 2nd. On June 27, the remaining two spuds were removed in order to clear the way for a salvage attempt. Nothing now remained visible above the water. Lighthouse keeper Taylor buoyed the wreck that day with lighted spars. On July 2, the coroner's jury found Capt Howell's and William Sweet's deaths to have been caused by accidental drowning. July 3rd's lift attempt on P. W. D. 117 was hampered by high waves. On July 6, perfect weather prevailed and hundreds of spectators lined the west pier to watch the wreckers at work. Only a metal davit from the dredge showed above the surface. McQueen Marine hoped to drag the hulk inside the piers. Whilst COMMANDER J. E. held an upward strain on the wreck, a pull was made using strong tackle whose end terminated in a slot cut through the concrete pier. The spectators left dis­ appointed as Lake Erie held the wreck fast. At 11 p. m. on July 20, the salvage fleet was augmented by the arrival of the tug ATOMIC and barge ACCOMMODATION. The pair had come from Hamilton where they had just finished lifting the sunken north section of the bascule bridge from the Burlington Canal. The Gartland Steamship Company's freighter W. E. FITZGERALD had rammed the bridge on April 29, when a mechanical prob­ lem failed to raise the bridge. By the time ATOMIC and ACCOMMODATION arrived at Port Stanley, over 200 tons of equipment and superstructure had been re­ moved from P. W. D. NO. 117 and made into an impressive pile on the west pier. Another attempt to pull the dredge inside the shelter of the piers on July 23 failed. Rough weather hampered salvage attempts for the next week. After two months of salvage work, McQueen's equipment was called off on Au­ gust 7th and they returned to Amherstburg. No further attempt was made to lift P. W. D. 117 for the rest of the season. On August 21, diving from the lighthouse pier was banned by the Department of Transport as vandals had tampered with the electrical cable supplying power to the spar buoys ligh­ ting the wreck, creating a hazard to navigation. PATRICIA McQUEEN had been built in 1911 as BALTIMORE (U. S . 208787). She was sold Canadian (C. 138142) in 1936 to McQueen Marine Co. and remained in its fleet until 1970, when she was resold American and renamed (c) MARICAIBO II. In 1980, the tug was renamed (d) JIGGS. She returned to Canadian ownership in 2001 and has been sitting idle in the Harry Gamble shipyard at Port Do­ ver, Ontario, since her arrival back in Canadian waters. McQueen's COMMANDER J. E. was partially dismantled by the Dean Construction Co. at LaSalle, Ontario, in the late 1970s and the hull eventually was sold to Jacques Beauchamp, who used it to build a floating restaurant at Windsor, which failed. The barge then was converted into a floating apartment buil­ ding, which is moored at LaSalle, just outside of Windsor, to this day. COM­ MANDER J. E. 's register was closed in 2001. In March of 1953, the Port Burwell Chamber of Commerce protested to the De­ partment of Public Works, after the department gave the harbour dredging contract to the Russell Construction Company of Toronto. The dredge JACK RUSSELL had been dredging at Port Burwell for several weeks at this time, leaving 25 unemployed former hands from the NO. 117 and HERCULES on the beach. The Chamber pleaded with the D. P. W. to give it dredge P. W. D. NO. 116, which then was lying idle at Toronto. The Chamber's plea was heeded and on June 1, 1953, the federal dredging operations resumed at Port Burwell, with P. W. D. NO. 116 arriving in tow of HERCULES from Kingston. HERCULES then went on to Port Stanley to fetch a pair of steel dump scows so that dredging could begin. Loaded on one of the scows was some small equipment salvaged from NO. 117 the previous year. HERCULES picked up her scows and departed for Port Burwell again, just after a salvage fleet from Kingston began work­ ing on the sunken NO. 117. The Pyke Salvage & Navigation Company, of Kingston, Ontario, had been awarded the wreck raising job. The tugs SALVAGE PRINCE and S. A. QUEEN and the salvage lighter HILDA went to work almost immediately upon their arri­