The structural integrity of a 70 yr old vessel is something to think about after hauling millions of tons of products. Glad to hear all the crew were safe as well as the ship so far. Maybe time for a new one. Be safe
The route is very deep water, not convinced they hit anything, my thought is keel structure failure due to age and weight. But that is just my opinion. We can wait for the report
The keel and or hull looks fractured if one is to judge by pictures taken at the scene. I understand the water depth in that area is app 700'. Hard to believe it hit something. Stress FX seems more probable.
I heard from a very reliable source in the last hour that the ship did not strike anything. Another fleet ship will pick up her cargo in the next several days. She will most likely then be repaired.
Sounds like she had a very good Captain and crew to get her into safe port.Big thank you to the massive GOTT helping her out and all the Coast Guard personal.And thank the God this was not November!
not sure hitting an object in the water would cause the ship to develop a huge wrinkle a third of the way along the hull something important gave out and i think your right about the hull failure
I'm just glad it and the crew made it in. I have a soft spot for the old things. They have earned our respect. I'm hoping they can dry dock her and find out what's going on with the condition of it. There's always something to learn from situations like this.
Friends of mine were on it leave Escanaba, MI. And they went in to bad weather and cracked parts of the ship and they ran cables from the wenches on the the bits to hold the ship together. Cracked long some hatches back to starboard side to the Cheif room.
Thank you Connor for this great vid and yes for me im thinking it was a stress factor in her hull considering her age,it wud be a shame to lose another forward end pilothouse ship, i had the pleasure of touring on this classic beauty after her Christening in Sarnia Ontario back in 2003,that is something i will never forget.
Even if the pumps are keeping up, the taconite pellets absorb 5-10% of their weight in water. Also, I wonder if this freighter was lengthened at one time.
You are going to wait until our government does an investigation! PS: I've noticed more and more of you voices of reason just so you can keep the conspiracy theories down, you stink of an FBI or CIA shill!!!...
Any guess how many times in all those years she's been twisted, bent and flexed in all directions? Maybe the pop of some steel breaking resembles an underwater strike??? They'll figure it out.
There is only one thing we all want to know: What did the Michipicoten hit? Superior is a beautiful lake but it not only never gives up its dead, it like to collect them. There are wrecks all over the lake.
I'd watched her depart Duluth about 4 weeks ago and I remember thinking that she looks pretty beat up. I'd suspect hull failure over submerged impact, but lets let the Coast Guard and other authorities do their job first. Looks like she may need to be scrapped as she's had a decent long life and is now so beat up that sinking is probably just a matter of time regardless of what happened here.
News reports I saw mentioned the possibility of hull failure. When I saw how run down she looks, I found that possibility quite believable. Who knows what the ultimate finding will be however.
This is what all vessels that go through the locks at Sault Ste Marie look like, to some degree. The hulls scrape against the sides of the locks and wear the paint off and mildly dents the plates. Doesn’t mean the hull’s integrity is compromised.
@@falcondragonslayer And yet they reported damage while in deep water! As I've mentioned before, a tree, even a VERY large tree, if it isn't rooted to the ground would just be pushed aside by the bow and with very little damage if at all! A floating log, no matter how big or even submerged, will simply be pushed out of the way.
In 1978 we left Thunder Bay downbound on a straight decker built in 1905. During the voyage we developed a list and water was found in one of the side tanks. Several of those old Lakers broke their backs in big storms a la Edmund Fitzgerald.
There are still plenty of ships that age and older on the lakes that operate with no difficulties. Everyone seems to forget, or ignore, the fact that winter layup was only a couple months ago and it was inspected and deemed fit for service
I'm going with hull failure. Probably poor maintenance and fatigue that was too costly to overcome and working her like she is a young chick finally broke her back.
They passed right over the Sovereign on marine tracker, a grain sloop that foundered 12 mi off of pie island. Wrecks never been dove, sonar'd or found. Believed to be in 400-300ft of water. Wonder if they whacked it but no way.
my guess as well and in that regard shame on USCG inspections that are supposed to prevent this. Pretty hard to believe there's a shallow spot they now found ... in the lake ... in the ocean one might suspect a wayward container and while this is possible the ship makes no mention of such a thing and they seldom disappear immediately
@@brianokeefe7781 Someone running a sub submerged in the lake? Smuggling maple syrup south? Seriously, a floating container is a possibility, but would it have enough mass to spring a hull plate? A ship that size to get nudged enough to feel it would have to hit something more than a container. So, a hovering wreck, a sub or a shallow spot are the possibilities. And if nothing else is reported missing, would be a remote possibility.
All ships in commerce in the world are subject to classification for seaworthiness by American Bureau of Shipping, Det Norske Veritas, Lloyds Registry etc. They do non- destructive testing every year, gauging hull plates, frames and stiffeners. Every 5 years they are to be dry docked. Pull the GPS position data. She hit the bottom.
Looking at the pictures it looks like the line of the hull changes just after the forward portion. The old photos show a straight line aft, the new photos seem to show a bend or kink in the hull. So hull failure sounds like a possibility. If the hull failed, I would assume it could make a sound as if the ship struck something.
I’ve seen this ship in person and the bow and stern sections slope up away from the deck. That’s how it was designed and built. Hull failure can’t be ruled out, but the slopes/kinks were how it was designed. She looks no different from pictures I have of her from last summer, minus the obvious list.
There hasn’t been a major disaster on the Great Lakes in almost 50 years (not since the Fitz went down) so a laker coming so close to sinking would understandably result in a lot of attention
There is no reason to speculate re: the cause of damage which will be instantly obvious in drydock. Modern spectrometry can tell you the material of an object that strikes another object. We had residue on damaged jet engine fan blades analyzed back in the 1990s and only a very small sample is needed. For example if a vessel struck a container it would abrade the Corten steel.
Woot! A Connor Tenold video! You provided some pretty comprehensive information here and you did some good editing. If I were to guess what happened to the old girl, I would say that the Chinese were experimenting with satellite mounted particle beam technology as I know nothing of ship construction or maintenance. I have a list since I acquired a broken leg on Feb. 23rd. It's improving, though. It's not as bad as when I first started putting weight on it again in mid May. I am eagerly awaiting your next video!
@@ConnorTenold I have a new titanium plate and seven titanium screws at the top of my tibia where it was all reassembled. The scar from the surgery can hardly be seen. Other than that, the judo organization that I belong to has told me that it's time for me to promote to 4th degree black belt. I'll have to start working on that as soon as my left leg is at 100%. I did spend more than 8 weeks not using that leg. I still have some work to do getting it back to or close to normal. It was a very ugly break, after all. In terms of music, I play the soprano saxophone and guitar. I learned "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" on the sax a couple of days ago. It sounds pretty sweet. You can find renditions of that song on the soprano sax on YT. Other than that, not much is new here. How about with you? If I'm right, you are graduating high school very soon if, it hasn't already happened. Of course, I could be off the mark. The other day, I was thinking about what you said about social media on your other channel. The word, "balance" kept popping into my head. Self-control and controlling social media use as opposed to allowing it to control you is the key, I guess. Any thoughts? I also pray for you every so often. I hopeyou don't mind. Oh my gosh! This got long. Sorry!
@@HahnJames Wow, 4th degree Black belt! That will be an accomplishment. I do love the saxaphone. Such a lovely instrument. For me I moved to a boarding school mid school year. Its a private christian academy. So I enjoyed that. I'm also working on an album. With Social Media it's all about how much control you let it have. Once your aware of it's dishonesty and tactics you can resist it. Social Media is also a great tool to spread the word of God to the world. Considering that, use Social Media. Don't be used by it. Don't mind at all, I often pray for everyone I know too. People forget the power of pray much to often.
@@ConnorTenold Was/is the christian academy far from home? I remember going to Northern Michigan University. It's in Marquette. I loved it up there. My residence hall was only a ten minute walk from Lake Superior. That was fun. It was an 8 1/2 hour drive from home, though, in good weather. You and I know how winters can be along the shores of Lake Superior. I spent 2 1/2 years there and then transferred to Central Michigan. That was only 2 1/2 hours away from home. Album? Tell me more. What instrument do you play? Do you sing? Fortunately, when I'm playing the saxophone, I can't sing. Nobody would want to hear that. LOl. Yeah, I have a Facebook account but, I only sign in to it about 3 times a week just to see what's up with people on my friends list. I only spend about 15 minutes there each time. I refuse to get a Tik Tok account. I think that Tik Tok is evil. When it comes to RU-vid, I probably spend too much time signed in. I'm pretty picky about the RU-vidrs that I subscribe too. I look for educational videos but, you have to be careful with those. You have to be very discerning and kind of look into the RU-vidr's history a bit. I like to watch videos about history and science. I also look for videos of people playing the saxophone or piano. There are a few channels that give saxophone lessons, too. I'm looking to improve any way I can. Let me know when you've finished your album. I'd like to hear it.
@@HahnJames It is a Christian academy and quite far from home but I have some relatives really close which is nice. I do guitar, some synthesizers and sing on the songs. I just use the guitar as a bass and program a drum beat for it. Although, i'm very picky about my drum beats because I want it to match the emotion of the song and not just make people want to do things with their hips. There are plenty of those songs out there and I just want to write meaningful music that makes people think and helps them. It is really sad that a lot of "educational channels" are not actually educational. The more and more time passes the more and more I go to books for education. In fact education is at a really bad spot right now in general. Especially for public schools. That's one of the reasons I went to a private school. I was able to actually learn things. I know that with learning an instrument the best way is to get lessons in person. You can certainly learn stuff from videos but getting a teacher in person where you can go and have lessons every week really improves you at a faster rate.
I've looked all over and can't find anything except a RU-vid video on it failing inspection so I am doubting that's true. We'll see. Even if it did fail inspection the Michipicoten is an easy money grabber for Lower Lakes Towing as it is fast and has a quick trade route between Duluth and Algoma Steel so they'd likely still repair it.
I use the Metric System so for me the Michipicoten is 210 metres long. But something I noticed with your video is that it's 2 minutes and 10 seconds. Coincidence?
Only 2 things it could have bumped into. A floating shipping container or a large tree trunk. On a ship that big; would they have even noticed? Probably hull structural failure due to fatigue. Every ship of that design and age should be inspected for cracks in the same area.
@@ConnorTenold Things are good, Im staying in Boston at school for summer classes. so just grinding away and hanging out w/friends. How are you? Anything new?
If by neglected you mean they don’t shell out enormous amounts of money to redo the paint every time it gets scratched on the locks, then sure, it’s neglected. But most of the “damage” is just surface scrapes and isn’t a notable sign of neglectful maintenance
When did this happen? Was it thirty to forty years ago? This is a really old fashioned vessel. You won’t find these antiques in any other part of the world including Africa,
That’s because these are lake freighters, not ocean-going vessels. The freshwater of the Great Lakes is a lot easier on the hulls and therefore allow lake freighters to have far longer lifespans than ocean-going ships.
Looks old and worn out. If it hit something, the other thing must have sunk quickly. If not and it is structural failure it should be wrote off and scrapped before lives are lost.
The surface appearance is mainly from the vessel bumping and scraping against the sides of the locks. Stop trying to act like you know what you’re talking about and leave the diagnosis to the experts who actually inspect the ship
It's an old ship and there is a thing call metal fatigue....over the years you have a lot of flexing with all of the weight this ship and other ships carry. One has to come to a decision sooner or later that this ship must be retired!!!!
Well there is a Russian war fleet of 25 vessels near a harbor in Cuba right now, just 90 miles away from Miami. This is actually happening right now yet none of the major news agencies are reporting this event.
All ships that go through locks can. This one has seen it’s fair share of trips through Sault St. Marie. It would be far too expensive and wasteful for the company to unnecessarily replace the paint job every year though, cause it’ll just get scraped up again
Pretty simple really. A boat that should NEVER have been even on the water ... literally a rusting hulk of junk ... collapsed in on itself. You can see the ribs of this ship through its hull for christ's sake. This thing was not seaworthy and its owner should be in jail.
Another idiot trying to act like they know what they’re talking about. Great. It’s not a rusting hunk of junk. The scraped and rust on the surface of the hull is from the ship scraping and bumping against the sides of the locks at Sault St. Marie. The ribs being visible is for the same reason. Look up pictures of other lakers. James R. Barker, for example, a well-maintained vessel built in the late ‘70s has the same appearance. All ships that go through locks will have bumps and scraped to some degree. And it isn’t necessary to shell out loads of money to replace the paint job every time it gets scraped up.
That's the latest. A crack twelve feet long opened up in her hull all on its own. It's not the rust that kills ships. Its the plates expanding and contracting in the sun and being hammered by waves and springing back. It causes fatigue and makes the metal brittle.
Metal will rust here if left outside in the rains for months. Can't imagine it being better in salted bathtub that gets stormy with heavy rolling waves. The boats are too long and get hogged to death. They should pull barges with large tugs. Or use cargo hauling submarines/ sealed cylinders.
any boat is repairable look at the samson boat co repair of tally ho.The inspection fail only means 'we got more work to do'. but also you must satisfy crew, sailors are a superstish lot
