Carl W Battle Andrea D Small Popular Books

Carl W Battle Andrea D Small Biography & Facts

SS Carl D. Bradley was an American self-unloading Great Lakes freighter that sank in a Lake Michigan storm on November 18, 1958. Of the 35 crew members, 33 died in the sinking. Twenty-three were from the port town of Rogers City, Michigan, United States. Her sinking was likely caused by structural failure from the brittle steel used in her construction as well as extensive use throughout her 31-year career. Built in 1927 by the American Ship Building Company in Lorain, Ohio, Carl D. Bradley was owned by the Michigan Limestone division of U.S. Steel, and operated by the Bradley Transportation Company. She retained the title of "Queen of the Lakes" for 22 years as the longest and largest freighter on the Great Lakes. History Design and construction Bradley Transportation Company's fleet of self-unloading ships was used to haul limestone from the Michigan Limestone quarry in Rogers City, Michigan. Carl D. Bradley was built to meet Michigan Limestone's lucrative contract with a cement firm in Gary, Indiana. By seven feet (2.1 m), she was longer than the second largest ship on the Great Lakes and her engine had almost twice the power of engines installed in most lake freighters. At 639 feet (195 m), she was the longest freighter (and the largest self-unloader) on the lakes for 22 years. Later the AA class of U.S. Steel-owned freighters was roughly the same size as Carl D. Bradley but shorter in length by just inches. Carl D. Bradley retained the title "Queen of the Lakes" until the launch of the 678-foot (207 m) SS Wilfred Sykes in 1949. Carl D. Bradley began as hull 797 in 1923 at the American Ship Building Company in Lorain, Ohio, where she was launched on April 9, 1927. She was outfitted with her fore and aft housing in the ensuing months until her maiden voyage, when her namesake Carl David Bradley, the president of Michigan Limestone; Bradley's wife; the Rogers City community band; and hundreds of Rogers City residents greeted her as she steamed into Calcite Harbor on July 28, 1927. Bradley declared that the new ship was "the last word in freighter construction." The United States Coast Guard (USCG) described Carl D. Bradley's design and construction as: ... [a] typical arrangement for self-unloading type vessels with a forepeak and large cargo area, and having propulsion machinery aft. These areas were separated by two transverse watertight bulkheads, the collision bulkhead at frame 12 and the engine room forward bulkhead at frame 173. The cargo hold space was divided into five compartments by screen bulkheads above the tunnel and the unloading machinery was located in the conveyor room just forward of the cargo spaces. The entire 475 foot length of the cargo spaces was open longitudinally through the tunnel and conveyor room. As the flagship of Bradley Transportation Company, Carl D. Bradley often carried corporate officials and guests in her staterooms. She received more attention than the other ships in the fleet, with her gray and red paint always fresh, her decks freshly hosed down, and a larger crew. She had individual rooms for the captain, chief mates, chief steward, and engine room officers. The rest of the crew was housed in comfortable dormitory style rooms. She had a "state-of-the-art" galley with huge refrigeration units and storage pantries. Her engine room housed a huge generator powered by two Foster-Wheeler boilers. Carl D. Bradley was the only fully electric ship in the Bradley Transportation fleet; her generator powered everything from the propeller to the running lights. Career Carl D. Bradley's registered port was New York City; however, her true base of operations was Rogers City, where Michigan Limestone was based. The Bradley Transportation fleet was predominantly crewed by men from Rogers City. Many of crew were friends, neighbors, or familial relatives. As the boats often departed and returned every few days, many of the crew made their homes and raised their families in Rogers City. During her career, Carl D. Bradley carried different grades of limestone from Lake Huron to deepwater ports on Lakes Michigan and Erie and occasionally Lake Superior. She set new records in stone trade, carrying her largest cargo in 1929 when she loaded with 18,114 long tons (20,288 short tons; 18,405 t) of limestone, a cargo that would require 300 railroad cars to move. She was the first lake freighter to pass through the new MacArthur Lock at the Soo Locks in 1943. As the largest ship on the lakes, Carl D. Bradley was traditionally the first boat through the Straits of Mackinac when the ice kept the smaller vessels from leaving port. She served as an icebreaker. Her forepeak was filled with concrete; she would break ice to Indiana, and then go to the Lorain shipyard for replacement of broken plates before starting her season. Carl D. Bradley sustained damage in a collision with MV White Rose on the St. Clair River on April 3, 1957. She was in dry dock in Chicago for seven days in May 1957 for major repairs to her hull. Carl D. Bradley had two groundings while proceeding out of Cedarville, Michigan, one in the spring of 1958 and the other in November 1958, the latter of which required repairs. These groundings were not reported to the USCG, which would later consider whether the groundings caused hull stresses that contributed to Carl D. Bradley's sinking. The USCG noted that although Bradley Transportation received an award for 2,228,775 injury-free man hours from April 24, 1955, to December 31, 1957, while operating Carl D. Bradley, the company's focus was industrial safety rather than material safety of the vessel. Since the company's founding in 1912, it had never lost a ship until loss of Carl D. Bradley. Although Carl D. Bradley was normally one of the busiest ships in the Bradley fleet, she was laid up from July 1 to October 1, 1958, due to a downturn in the steel industry. She made only 43 round trips in the 1958 shipping season. Carl D. Bradley was scheduled for repairs in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, when she laid up over the winter. Her owner, Bradley Transportation, a U.S. Steel subsidiary, planned an $800,000 replacement of her rusting cargo hold and bulkheads. A common joke among her crew was that she was being held together by her rust. Sailors reported that they picked up sheared off rivets by the bucketful following storms due to Carl D. Bradley's excessive twisting and bending in heavy weather. The USCG conducted an annual inspection of Carl D. Bradley on April 17, 1958, and found her seaworthy. On October 30, 1958, the USCG found no problems during a safety inspection of Carl D. Bradley that included a fire and boat drill. Final voyage Carl D. Bradley met its fate on November 18, 1958, while en route to Rogers City. The previous day, she had completed what was initially supposed to be her last voyage of the 1958 season, which she completed with the delivery of a cargo of crushed stone at Gary, Indiana. After leaving Gary, Carl D. Bra.... Discover the Carl W Battle Andrea D Small popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Carl W Battle Andrea D Small books.