Heritage Marine bought a second tug for their fleet. Called the Ares, Heritage Marine owner Mike Ojard brought her to Duluth on Tuesday, October 27. 2009. She had been used as a supply tug for oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Heritage owner Mike Ojard had the tug’s hull reinforced in New Orleans to increase her ice breaking capability up here. A bow thruster was also added to the vessel. She was then convoyed up the Mississippi River and into the Illinois River and up to Lemont, Illinois as a part of a tug barge combination. Ojard took it from there, bringing her up Lake Michigan and across Lake Superior to Duluth. Two years ago, Ojard purchased the tug Forney, brought it up here and renamed her Edward H. after his father, who was the chief engineer on the Edna G.
The J. L. Mauthe was built at River Rouge, Michigan in 1953. After a long and steady career, she entered layup at Fraser Shipyards in Superior in 1993. On the last day of 1996, she was towed from Fraser to the Bay Shipbuilding Company to be converted into a barge called the Pathfinder. At about the same time, Interlake Steamship also built the tug Dorothy Ann. They entered Great Lakes Service in 1999 as the barge/tug combination Dorothy Ann/Pathfinder. They arrived in Duluth to load coal last night (October 21, 2009), their first trip here as a tug barge combination. Below, Captain Gary Schmidt (left) and First Mate Jeremy Mock (right) made sure the Pathfinder and Dorothy Ann had a safe passage through the wind, the rain, the snow and the ice last night.
Above, the Utviken, top, and the Rega, were at anchor off the Duluth piers waiting to load grain at CHS in Superior. The Rega, built in Poland in 1995 as the Fossnes by a Norwegian company, was sold in 2002 to the Polish Steamship Company where she received her current name. She made many trips here as the Fossnes but was here only once before 2009, in August, 2002 as the Rega. As the Fossnes, she loaded many cargos of barley at the Cargill Terminal in Duluth. Those cargos were shipped by Anheuser-Busch to England to make Budweiser beer. In their ads, the company said no matter where in the world you were, your Budweiser was brewed with barley from the Midwest. I can vouch for at least part of the claim. On her August, 2002 trip here, the Rega loaded wheat for Barcelona.
The Arthur M. Anderson spent the winter layup in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin and didn’t leave for work until last month around September 23. She arrived in Duluth today (October 12, 2009) for the first time this season with a cargo of limestone picked up in Stoneport, Michigan. She will leave here to load iron ore pellets in Two Harbors for Conneaut. She was last here on December 23rd, 2008.
