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NOV. DEG: , 1971 Page 162 noon, then it has esght hours off. At eight in the evening that watch goes on duty again. The second watch goes on at twelve, the third watch goes on at four. The members of each watch are ambidextrous in that they are capable of handling the gear while the ship is underway, loading, or unloading. The operation is cont- inuous. The captain, first engineer, and the boatswain, do not work reg- ular watches...they are on call 24 hours a day. Due to this continual operation I had just one opportunity, during daylight hours, to observe the pro- ceedures for a complete load. When the buoy marking the digging area is sighted a short blast of the whistle summons the watch forward. The two deacon cranes (those noisy contraptions outside my stateroom portholes) roar and hiss into action lowering pulley blocks to shackles on the forward ends of the sixty- five foot long digging pipes. When these shackles are bolted and secur- ed the deacon crane turns on its orbit and pulls the digging pipe forward along a trolley track on the port and starboard well decks, where they have been stored inboard out of harm's way while the steamer is run- ning, or unloading alongside a dock. At a certain spot in its forward journey along the trolley tracks the Pipe is stopped, and tackle from a stationary crane is lowered to the stern end of the pipe. Then, the end of the pipe, which is fitted to a wide plate of steel, is lowered in- to a slotted rack running down the side of the vessel below the water line to the intake port. The wide plate inside the slot makes a water- tight seal. When the digging ground is reached the steamer is headed into the wind, anchored, and the two intake pipes are lowered to the lake bottom by the noisy deacon cranes. Then, the diesel-powered pumps are turned on and two streams of water are sucked into the vessel through 18-inch diameter suction pipes. Pictures, better than words, could convey the appearance of the in- tricate A-frame superstructure run- ning the length of the vessel from the bridge deck to the after cabins. Suspended half-way up this A-frame, and positioned over two open hoppers are long sheet iron flumes which carry the water from the intake pipes the length of the two hoppers. At intervals in these flumes, bottom sluices are inserted to evenly dist- ribute the incoming aggregate and water. In the bottom of the flumes, over the sluices, grates if diff- erent screen sizes are inserted to automatically size the material coming aboard for a particular order of either plastering sand, cement sand, or gravel. The two receiving hoppers are open to the weather. There are no hatches to cover them in rough weather. (Wednesday afternoon, May 12, 1971, we were running up Lake Erie, in the face of a stiff west wind, on the steamer course off East Sister Is- land before turning in toward Tol- edo. Waves were striking the bow and breaking completely over the wheel - house. As the wave gushed back along the side, the low well deck was completely awash. As the seas rolled unhindered along the well deck suff- icient of them washed over the coam- ing of the after hold to require the pumps to be started to keep it clear of water. It was at four o'clock on this afternoon that the owners call- ed Captain Leonard by radio tele- phone and asked his opinion as to whether it was advisable to confirm picking up Judge Henriksen the fol- lowing day. Captain Leonard advised of the recent MAFORS weather broad- cast to all mariners warning of an approaching low from Lake Superior and mentioned the current high seas he was encountering...and, it was agreed that in the interest of safe- ty for all concerned the visit of the Judge should be postponed. I was in the wheelhouse at the time and, impartially, I would agree with the decision. Ironically, it turned out that the weather front passed to the north of Lake Erie and on Thursday