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Ship of the Month - cont'd. 8. orange-red with a broad white band and black smokeband at the top. Our three ships would retain these colours for the rest of their lives. But in 1927 C. S. L. did a lot of renaming of vessels it had acquired, and various naming schemes were adopted for different groups or classes of ships. Accordingly, the BUCK was renamed (b) MEAFORD, the REYNOLDS became (b) PENETANG, and the KERNAN was rechristened (b) BARRIE, all three honouring places in the Huronia area of Southern Ontario. Meaford and Penetanguishene are former shipping towns located on southern Georgian Bay, while Barrie is an inland city located further south and at the western end of Lake Simcoe. We have absolutely no idea why these names were chosen for the three ships, apart from the fact that they are reasonably close to Collingwood, where the ships were built. The 1927 season saw most of the same masters and chiefs on the three ships. The only diffe­ rence was that B. Maartense was named master of PENETANG. The 1927 season appears to have been busy but generally uneventful for the three sisterships, but 1928 brought accidents for two of them. On June 26, 1928, the BARRIE and the Norwegian steamer HANSA collided in the Soulanges Canal, although damage was not of a serious nature. The Dominion Wreck Com­ missioner, Capt. L. A. Demers, held an investigation at Montreal on October 17 and 18, with Captains C. Lapierre and L. Beaupre as nautical assessors. According to an account appearing in the December issue of CR&MW, it was held that HANSA alone was to blame for the collision "through an error of judgment", and the certificates of BARRIE's officers were returned to them. The September 1928 issue of CR&MW reported on an event involving the MEAFORD. "Canada Steamship Lines' s. s. MEAFORD grounded opposite Cap de la Madeleine, St. Lawrence River, July 8. F. X. Raymond, the pilot, who had not been well, admitted that he had fallen asleep on a sofa in the bridge house for a moment, the mate being on the bridge at the time. At the conclusion of the hearing, July 19, the certificates of the captain and mate were re­ turned to them, the captain being advised that he was responsible for the safety of his ship, which he should not leave entirely in the pilot's hands. "Capt. Demers retained the pilot's certificate, stating that it was a well known fact that the most complete charts of the St. Lawrence ship channel are available and there is not the slightest excuse for any pilots to take a ship outside of the official channel as was apparently done in this instance. If a pilot leaves the channel and an accident happens to his ship, he is entirely to blame. The finding was issued Aug. 3, suspending F. X. Ray­ mond's certificate until July 17, 1929. " The 1928 season did bring something good for our triplets. That autumn saw the completion of the Toronto Elevators Ltd. 2, 000, 000 bushel elevator facility on the Toronto waterfront, and the official opening took place on November 21 with the arrival of C. S. L. 's "counties class" steamer NORFOLK with a cargo of 91, 913 bushels of wheat. Over a period of 17 days from November 21 until the closing of navigation (with the closing of the Welland Canal for the season) on December 8, 31 cargoes of grain totalling 2,768,384 bushels were delivered to the elevator. 19 of those cargoes, mostly brought by C. S. L. ships, were unloaded right away, while 12 steamers brought in winter storage cargoes and were laid up at anchor in the harbour south of the elevator. Amongst those that had storage cargoes were, not surprising­ ly, BARRIE, MEAFORD and PENETANG. Some interesting details are known concerning our triplets' 1928 operations. Each of the three steamers made 21 trips that year. BARRIE burned 1, 807 tons of coal at a rate of 8. 6 tons per day and averaged 8. 4 miles travelled per ton. MEAFORD consumed 1, 899 tons and averaged 8. 2 miles per ton. PENETANG burned up 2, 098 tons over the year, which worked out to 7. 7 miles steamed per ton of bunkers consumed. These figures clearly show how much time the steamers spent in the canals. The 1929 season was not a good one for the Canadian lake fleets. Things started out well but when summer came, the grain trade died and many of the C. S. L. canallers were laid up, most of them at Kingston. Some of those, the least economical to operate, would never turn a wheel again because of the autumn financial crash that broadened into the Great Depres­ sion. During the bad years of the early 1930s, C. S. L. did as several other fleets did; they ran just a few boats at a time and alternated them so that all their best ships could be kept in decent operating condition. BARRIE, MEAFORD and PENETANG were among the newest and best of the bulk canallers, so they probably saw as much operation as any of them. However, those years were not all gloom and doom. The official opening of Lock 8 of the new Welland Canal took place on September 18, 1929, and the first downbound lockage consisted