The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Page 60 During the height of WW II, the HUMPHREY collided in the fog with the D.M. CLEMSON in the Straits of Mackinac and sank in seventy feet of water. government legislation and costly pollution abatement requirements, are struggling to remain profitable, let alone in existence. Some of the proudest names in steel have been losing the battle. It was an era when grain production in the field and export sales of that same grain dictated the economics and ship movements on a far greater scale than before. Older ships, if they are powered by steam, are considered to be too costly to operate, and thus, expendable. Suddenly the seemingly "new" steamers of the 1950s and 1960s are no longer competitive and are considered to be obsolete, even those with maximum Seaway dimensions or larger. The recent migration of former lakers to scrapyards here and abroad during the past few seasons lends mute and solemn testimony to that fact. The lack of new production requirements in the smokestack sector of the ecomony in both the USA and Canada has resulted in the near demise of the shipbuilding industry on the Great Lakes. As a result of Federal shipbuilding subsidies in the late 1960s and 1970s, the few remaining yards in Canada and the USA were suddenly busy with short-lived prosperity. They were all busy building the new breed of "expendable" lake ship, all equipped with modem diesel engines with an inherently lower operating cost. These diesel powered giants rapidly modernized the fleets as the shipping companies quickly took advantage of the governmental monies and upgraded their fleets. Never mind the fact that the pseudo prosperity under the subsidies was resulting in products that would be a "throw away" commodity. With the passing of the steamers, also came the passing of an era where older vessels were upgraded with new power plants or other improvements. The future seems to hold little promise that today's new vessels will be similarly improved when their power plants need replacement. On the contrary, the future seems bleak for the new vessel technology of today, and a life McDonald Coll./Dossin Museum