Maritime History of the Great Lakes

Scanner, v. 37, no. 5 (March 2005), p. 5

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5. Ship of the Month - cont'd. 75, 000 bushels, so the average profit to the C. S. L. coffers on a round trip was $1, 375. On GRAINMOTOR's third round trip she was able to squeeze through the small locks with 100, 108 bushels of wheat. Even through she produced more revenue than the steamships, GRAINMOTOR carried an oil-fired donkey boiler for producing steam heating for her accommodations, as C. S. L. officials deemed electrical heating too costly for such purposes. GRAINMOTOR certainly was a departure from other C. S. L. canallers, but she still was a good-looking ship, although she had almost no sheer to her decks. She was given a fully-topgallant forecastle with a closed steel bulwark for most of the length of its head. Two squarish anchor pockets were fitted near the straight stem at spar deck level. A broad but flat-fronted texas cabin was positioned atop the forecastle head and a pilothouse with three large windows in its face was located on the bridge deck above, from which bridgewings extended out to the sides of the ship. A short pipe foremast rose immediately abaft the pilothouse. Aft there was a closed steel taffrail around the flush quarterdeck. A fairly large cabin was located on the poop and on the hurricane deck above were po­ sitioned two lifeboats, one on either side and each worked with radial steel davits. Many early motorships had rather puny little smokestacks, but GRAINMOTOR was given a rather large and fat stack, albeit without much rake. A number of ventilator cowls were positioned around the base of the funnel, and the steel pipe mainmast, likewise little raked, rose well abaft the stack. Typical of C. S. L. ships of her day, GRAINMOTOR was given a red hull with white forecastle and cabins. The name 'Canada Steamship Lines' was carried in white "billboard" letters along each side. The smokestack was orange-red with a white band and a black smokeband at the top. The foremast was buff while the mainmast was black. There were no kingposts or cargo booms on deck, as GRAINMOTOR was intended specifically for the grain trade. Due to the congestion of ships waiting to unload at Montreal, GRAINMOTOR would not have made many trips in the autumn of 1929, but C. S. L. management gave her as quick a dispatch at Montreal as possible, allowing her to take the turn for unloading of other C. S. L. ships whenever it could be arranged. She was able to make a round trip about every eight days. GRAINMOTOR was something of an experiment. C. S. L. had planned to build a number of similar ships if she turned out to be a success, and although GRAINMOTOR was an asset to the fleet, the other motorvessels never were built, as plans for a fleet of motorships were abandoned when the Great De­ pression set in. No other canal motorship served the C. S. L. fleet until the advent of IROQUOIS and METIS in 1955 and 1956, respectively. GRAINMOTOR spent most of her freshwater career transporting various bulk cargoes from lake ports to the St. Lawrence River harbours. With a good por­ tion of her sailing time being spent in the canals, it was not unusual that she should have been involved in a number of minor accidents in the narrow canal waters. Restricted channels, unpredictable currents and a good portion of mechanical failures were to be the lot of GRAINMOTOR's master. The first incident of which we are aware occurred on May 13, 1933. Running into the bank at the head of the Morrisburg Canal caused GRAINMOTOR to stove a small hole in her hull. The Sin-Mac tug CONQUEROR with the lighter COBOURG were called from Kingston to her aid. The hole was patched within a few hours and GRAINMOTOR proceeded to Toronto with her cargo of Welsh coal. A postcard dated at Matane, Quebec, on September 20, 1935, sent from crew member Bill Scott to his friend Bill Peeling, of Dundas, Ontario, stated: "We came down here for a load of pulp [presumably from the Hammermill Paper Company's loading facility there]. It isn't very far from Port Neuf where we were on the GRAINMOTOR only on the wrong side of the river. "

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