4th of July crowds were gathered at the end of Wisconsin Point and the Cort made the most of it! Moving incredibly slowly at about 1 knot (slower than a walking pace) she put on a long show, completed with a long two tone Master Salute eerily similar to those delivered by her fleetmate. Look out James R Barker! You’re not the only game in town anymore!
Built in 1972, the Cort was by far the largest ship on the Great Lakes and one of the largest freighters in the world at the time. She measures 1,000ft in length and able to carry 58,000 tons, more than twice the amount of the previous record holder, Edmund Fitzgerald with her 26,000 ton capacity (the two ships sailed together for 3 years). Her size makes her an extremely effective hauler, but several experimental design elements such as a short shuttle boom and rotating hatch covers limit her operations to running iron ore to just one or two ports on the Lakes. She is extremely specialized but is able to do it incredibly well. Today the Cort runs almost exclusively between Superior, WI and Burns Harbor, IN, occasionally loading at Silver Bay. Because of this she can be a little tricky to catch, the Superior Entry is quite remote and can be extremely difficult to get timing correct due to the dock layout. Once the ships move, there’s very little time to successfully catch them in the channel! Because of this difficulty, it’s not often that many people are out on the piers waiting for her, so the captain and crew clearly had some fun entertaining the crowds gathered for the holiday.
Also coming and going from the channel before the Cort were a pair of large sail boats, including the large two masted one that I’ve seen on the horizon several times before, but never up close! Both had some difficulty with the stiff wind coming off the lake, with the two masted one having to come about in a circle to reorient themselves after getting pushed sideways slightly, and the second one… well let’s just say I’d have turned back and gone sailing in the harbor instead because that looked ROUGH!
Hope everyone enjoys!
Негізгі бет Cort Showing Off with a Rare Barker-like Master Salute!
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