The Biggest Ship To Ever Sail The Great Lakes | Paul R. Tregurtha

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:02]She's the largest ship ever to sail on North America's Great Lakes.

[00:00:07]She can carry 55,000 tons of cargo through crippling ice, rough weather, and impossibly narrow rivers and locks.

[00:00:19]On the Great [music] Lakes, disaster is routinely close at hand.

[00:00:23]>> So, we're wedged in here. Oh, yeah.

[00:00:26]We're wedged here. Good.

[00:00:28]The steel mills and power plants of American industry count on her to get through whatever the risks.

[00:00:38]Paul R. Triggera, mightiest of the great Lakers.

[00:00:46]Spring on Lake Michigan.

[00:00:52]The March ice is still thick, but it's time for [music] a sleeping giant to wake up.

[00:00:59]Paul R. Triggera is the largest ever of the Great Lakes frighterss. At 38 m long, she's bigger than three football fields laid end to end.

[00:01:13]She's been hibernating in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.

[00:01:17]Now winter shore leave is over.

[00:01:23]Drag's captain is legendary, too.

[00:01:27]Timothy Dayton has been a master of Great Lakes ships for more than 20 years. He's a leader who can coax as much out of a ship as she has to give.

[00:01:36]He takes pride in getting the most out of every journey, no matter what the obstacles.

[00:01:42]>> Hi there. How's things looking?

[00:01:45]>> We're getting ready to start the engines.

[00:01:57]Yeah. Go ahead and drop the lines forward there, please.

[00:02:01]>> One's gone.

[00:02:03]>> Number one gone.

[00:02:05]>> Seven's gone.

[00:02:06]>> Seven's [music] gone.

[00:02:09]>> This year, Captain Dayton's biggest worry is the ice.

[00:02:13]>> There's probably a good 16, 18 inches of ice yet.

[00:02:17]>> Yeah. Yeah. Oh, well, it's uh we haven't seen a spring like this for a while.

[00:02:24]>> Roger that.

[00:02:26]>> Global warming.

[00:02:32]>> 859. We're going.

[00:02:40]Traa is the first ship out of the gate.

[00:02:46]For better or worse, she'll lead the way through the ice for the competitors who will follow her.

[00:02:56]She is only idle for two months of the season, the worst of winter freeze up, when the Coast Guard closes the locks to Lake Superior.

[00:03:05]For the other 10 months of the year, she goes back and forth across the lakes, moving an astronomical 55,000 tons of coal or iron ore each trip. That's enough to fill 500 railway cars.

[00:03:20]On the delivery end, she unloads it herself using her 80 m conveyor boom.

[00:03:29]For her first contract, she'll travel empty to Superior, Wisconsin. She'll load up with coal and deliver it to Detroit Edison's generating plant near St. Clair, Michigan. It won't be easy.

[00:03:41]The upper Great [music] Lakes are famous for their storms, ice choked bays, and narrow, treacherous rivers.

[00:03:52]All of the Big Lakers [music] power comes from eight stories below. This is the domain of chief engineer Lauren Wzinski. He oversees Triggera's 1500 horsepower bow thruster and two massive 8,000 horsepower diesel motors.

[00:04:09]The engines were partially rebuilt this winter. They're not broken in yet. Until they are, the new pistons can only run with limited RPMs.

[00:04:19]>> This is a schedule we have right now. Um it's called the braking. Like we want to run 75 RPM for four hours, 80 RPM for four hours, 85 for four hours. It's a gradual uh increasing the load on the engine.

[00:04:36]>> Running the engine too hard now would put a huge strain on the rebuild that could cause damage and possibly even a breakdown.

[00:04:47]And the ice is already a problem. A track [music] has been cleared, but Triggera is 32 m across.

[00:04:55]The path isn't wide enough.

[00:05:00]The ship [music] can push through the straightaways, but she's too big for the turns.

[00:05:07]Wheelsman Donald Nye has steered these lakes for most of his life, but this is a tight squeeze.

[00:05:13]>> To the right there.

[00:05:14]>> It's hard right.

[00:05:15]>> Hard right. Okay. Go back to 10. 10.

[00:05:24]Needs to swing just a little bit more.

[00:05:28]Come on, baby.

[00:05:32]There it goes.

[00:05:34]>> Woohoo.

[00:05:36]Play pinball wizard.

[00:05:37]>> Yes.

[00:05:48]It's too narrow.

[00:05:56]>> Traa is stopped cold in plain view of the pier she just left.

[00:06:03]>> Go hard again.

[00:06:05]>> Hard.

[00:06:11]>> Try 10.

[00:06:12]>> 10.

[00:06:14]>> Now go hard. back to heart.

[00:06:16]>> All right, just just leave it hard.

[00:06:20]>> Now, it's just a matter of power.

[00:06:23]Either the ice is going to win or we're going to win.

[00:06:30]The problem is the ice is probably 18, 20 in thick here. And so, not going to break it with the ship site.

[00:06:40]So, we're wedged in here.

[00:06:43]Oh, yeah. We're wedged here. Good.

[00:06:47]It's always good to do things properly, and we are properly stuck.

[00:06:55]>> For Captain Dayton, a delay so early in the trip is a bitter blow. It's time to call the Coast Guard for help.

[00:07:03]>> Mobile Danny.

[00:07:04]>> Yeah, Mobile Bay, the Paul R. Triggera.

[00:07:06]How you doing? Well, just to let you know, we are stuck out here just past uh Sherwood Point and uh I have not been able to move here in about uh 20 minutes, 25 minutes working the engines back and forth.

[00:07:22]>> The Coast Guard icebreaker Mobile Bay is nearby.

[00:07:27]>> Frustrations.

[00:07:30]This is going to be a long trip.

[00:07:35]A lot of money down the drain when we're not moving.

[00:07:38]>> No, that's true.

[00:07:39]>> Overhead.

[00:07:42]>> This is getting your car stuck in the snow. And now we're waiting for Joe's Towing to show up and pull us out.

[00:07:50]>> 2 hours later, Mobile Bay arrives.

[00:07:54]She'll try to break up one side of the solid ice that's gripping Dartha, freeing her up to finish the turn that got her wedged.

[00:08:04]He's trying to get a little speed up.

[00:08:10]What do you think the uh thickness is of it there?

[00:08:14]>> I wouldn't be surprised if uh some of the plate here wasn't a couple feet. Uh so yeah, pretty hard stuff.

[00:08:21]>> It is tough.

[00:08:24]>> Captain Dayton is anxious to get going.

[00:08:28]>> Okay, don't be alarmed. I'm going to try going ahead on it. We got a couple clicks out of the compass, so we're a little bit loose. If I can get her to move ahead, then I'll try backing again.

[00:08:38]Okay, Doug.

[00:08:41]Let's go hard to the right.

[00:08:48]Come on, baby. Don't fail me. Now we're going.

[00:08:59]Okay, I got her moving a stirer now.

[00:09:10]Well, that's some mean nasty stuff.

[00:09:16]The ice. It's mean nasty stuff.

[00:09:20]No, the coffee is good.

[00:09:26]Triggera powers forward for a few kilometers, but the ice is too thick.

[00:09:38]>> Well, this ain't doing so good here.

[00:09:43]>> Oh man.

[00:09:46]>> The captain pushes the engines, but Triggera is stuck fast.

[00:09:51]She should be 300 km north. Instead, she's trapped 25 from where she started.

[00:09:59]The fleet behind her is blocked [music] in. And the Coast Guard cutter is no longer available to help.

[00:10:06]Traga has to wait for a private icebreaker. It's getting dark, the wind is up, and the private icebreaker is 8 hours away.

[00:10:22]Midnight on a frozen Lake Michigan. 15 hours and just 25 kilometers since Dartha left port. She's stuck, still waiting for an icebreaker to free her.

[00:10:37]At 200 a.m., the Erica Kbasic finally arrives.

[00:10:47]And at last, Drag is free.

[00:10:52]The ship's [music] night vision camera guides the way through the track in the ice.

[00:10:58]The Kabasic stays with the freighter, cutting her free whenever she gets stuck.

[00:11:07]>> Even the stuff here. I mean, it's hard to tell, but uh >> when the icebreaker leaves at dawn, the competition is breathing down Triggera's neck and using the path she's cleared.

[00:11:21]>> All the stuff [music] that they've been breaking up is now moving that way and good riddens to it. We like to say it should go back to Canada where it came from.

[00:11:32]>> Captain Dayton wants to make up for the day he's lost. Delays in commercial shipping are measured in minutes, and minutes [music] are measured in thousands of dollars.

[00:11:42]>> Well, I'm bunching in the uh the GPS route uh that will actually steer the vessel to Lancing Shaw.

[00:11:51]>> He keeps an eye on the other ships.

[00:11:53][music] >> Each uh transponder has a unique code.

[00:11:57]It's kind of like with the ones in aircraft. This is us right here. And what that does is it tells us who the ship is and gives us his course and speed and position. Bringing up rear is the agriby spear >> Charles and Beagley.

[00:12:16]>> That has been a very useful tool in collision avoidance at least among ships.

[00:12:24]>> Chirtha is moving but the ice is still causing problems.

[00:12:29]Below, Chief Engineer Lauren Warzinski is worried. When Traa was stuck, Captain Dayton was forced to push the engines hard.

[00:12:42]>> Well, the poor old chief's uh break-in schedule went right out the window uh for about 15 minutes after we left the dock.

[00:12:51]The effect on the engines may not be immediately known, but there was no choice given the intense resistance of this year's ice. Even worse, the ice is choking the ship's ballast intakes, and that's critical in keeping her stable when she's empty.

[00:13:08]Triggera was designed to sail with a heavy load, so when her holds are empty, [music] she floats 8 m too high in the water.

[00:13:17]The engineers compensate by gradually filling her nine ballast tanks as they sail away from the dock. By the time they reach deep water, the tank should be weighed down by 75,000 L of lake water.

[00:13:32]We have a lot of ice on our suction screens. So, we get so much water in and then we have to turn out around and pump out to blow that ice away from the suction screen. So, it's probably taking three times as long to put water in the boat as what it normally would.

[00:13:48]>> Captain Dayton is just starting to feel relieved about making some headway when first mate Daniel Culligan reports a potential disaster.

[00:13:57]>> Now, what's this?

[00:13:58]>> We got a hole sign number one hatch. He looked over the water spraying out.

[00:14:08]>> Want to go up and take a look at it. See what uh I didn't think we hit anything that hard. Bouncing around though.

[00:14:17]>> Yeah.

[00:14:18]>> Hit a sharp corner.

[00:14:20]>> Yep. This is nice here.

[00:14:23]>> Yeah.

[00:14:25]Okay. Go ahead again there, Dan.

[00:14:28]>> Okay. She's uh just about a foot or so above the water line. It's a good foot crack and she's uh pissing out. The water's coming out in one, two, three, four, about five different spots.

[00:14:44]>> Yeah. Okay. So, you're right there.

[00:14:47]Forward edge of number one.

[00:14:49]>> Right where I'm standing. Right here.

[00:14:50]Yeah. She's just on the forward edge of number one edge.

[00:14:53]>> Forward edge of number one edge on the port side. Okay.

[00:14:57]>> This should not have happened. Trigger's hull is made of 19 mm thick high tensile steel. It's built to withstand the ice.

[00:15:08]Captain Dayton has to tell the US [music] Coast Guard there is a hole in his ship. If their inspectors think Triggera is in danger, they'll send her back to port. Or they may keep her in Sue St. Maria until a repair crew can fly in and fix her there. Either way, it's a huge delay and a huge expense.

[00:15:29]>> Good morning, Sector Suell. I can help you.

[00:15:31]>> Hi there. This is motor vessel Paul Traa here.

[00:15:34]>> How you doing? We have apparently a crack in the hall up around our number one uh ballast tank. It's probably at the 20 21 ft level. What our intention is is to uh uh continue to proceed on our journey and have repairs affected in Superior where Frasier shipyard is.

[00:16:00]>> And Katherine, do you have any other safety concerns at this point?

[00:16:04]crack at the 21 ft level. If you're drafting 20 ft, how do you plan to address that issue?

[00:16:09]>> Well, it's not >> it.

[00:16:10]>> Yeah, really what I'm planning on doing is taking some water out of my number one and two tanks right now, lightening up the forward end a bit so that uh any further ice stress will be [music] away from that area.

[00:16:24]>> All right, captain. Thank you very much.

[00:16:26]>> All right, real good.

[00:16:26]>> Okay, bye.

[00:16:29]forms.

[00:16:31]Now comes the miraculously.

[00:16:36]>> Triggera doesn't have to turn back yet.

[00:16:40]But in Sue St. Marie, the Coast Guard will take a close look at the crack in her hull. Only then will they know how bad it is and if the ship can be allowed to try to make it to Superior.

[00:16:55]After 33 hours of struggle, Traga has at last pushed herself through the toughest of the lake ice. A few patches of the blue open waters of northern Lake Michigan begin to appear.

[00:17:10]The captain makes the most of this break.

[00:17:23][music] But the break doesn't last long and they are soon back in the early spring ice.

[00:17:40]The narrow St. Mary's River leads to the locks at Sue St. Marie, but it's congested with ice and night is falling.

[00:17:50]The Coast Guard suspends all traffic on the river until morning. The ice is too thick to take chances. [music] She'll rest tonight, but tomorrow must navigate the river and the impossibly tight locks of Sue Staint Marie. The Coast Guard there could still send her right back [music] where she started.

[00:18:15]The queen of the Great Lakes has been fighting the lake ice and the ice has won the first few rounds. It has punched a hole in Triggera and put her two days behind schedule [music] on route to pick up a load of coal in Wisconsin. Now she has to face a [music] Coast Guard inspection of her cracked hull that could set her back even more or send her home. But first, [music] she has to battle the ice and tight turns of the St. Mary's River.

[00:18:53]Captain Dayton will do this alone without help from a local pilot. He has a ship's master's license and a pilot's license for these waters. That means he can go through [music] the river and the Soolocks unassisted, but it also means he alone bears the blame if something goes wrong. Okay, let's go hard [music] to the right, Doug.

[00:19:17]>> The river's bends are a challenge for the massive Tura in the best of conditions. With the ice, getting through each turn is a minor miracle of ship handling.

[00:19:28]The role of ship's captain is one of the most challenging in any field. On board, he's the driver, the navigator, the meteorologist, the CEO, and the mayor.

[00:19:39]But this captain is a good guy to work for because he's not a screamer and we appreciate that, you know, because when you go out on deck, you don't want to be all tense [music] and worrying about getting screamed at versus doing your job.

[00:19:52]>> Captain Dayton knows how to make his 22erson crew feel like they're the best team on the lakes.

[00:19:59]>> I have a very good chief engineer, lot of experience, good guy to work with. He owns a farm in uh [music] the thumb of Michigan.

[00:20:08]>> I tell my wife I have the best of both worlds. I always enjoyed sailing. I always enjoyed farming. So I get to do both.

[00:20:15]>> He has 80 90 head of beef cattle and so most of the beef we eat on the ship comes from his farm. So when we know that that's cow number 76, you know, some people are bothered by that, you know. [laughter] I think out here the big thing is if you have good food, it's a big morale booster.

[00:20:41]So the guys don't really have a lot to look forward to except for meal time. So we try to make it nice for them.

[00:20:48]>> Lunch doesn't get any better than this, huh?

[00:20:57]Two days behind schedule, Tragirtha at last reaches the approaches to the Po lock, the biggest of the locks at Sue St. Marie. This is her only gateway to Lake Superior.

[00:21:08]>> This [music] is where lake raiders do things that ocean ships don't normally do, and that's make a dock, land on the dock, slide the wall.

[00:21:18]>> There is no wasted space in Terartha's design.

[00:21:24]Oceancegoing ships have sharper boughs for less resistance on long voyages, [music] but Triggera's blunt bow gives her maximum cargo capacity while still fitting into this lock.

[00:21:36]When she slides in, she will have less than a half a meter of clearance on her port and starboard sides. There is no ship on the lakes with less room for error.

[00:21:48]>> Four on the flat.

[00:21:49]>> Okay.

[00:21:50]>> And three.

[00:21:51]>> All right.

[00:21:53]Okay. Can you see it there? Right. Tim, >> half a foot closing.

[00:21:59]>> 48 [music] to the gate.

[00:22:02]>> Drag's deck hands go down to work the moing lines. The ship will not even pause to let them off.

[00:22:11]>> That fella there, Tim.

[00:22:13]>> They're over here.

[00:22:14]>> Okay.

[00:22:16]>> The inspectors move in to look at the leak in the ruptured hull.

[00:22:21]Each of the Coast [music] Guard sectors have their own rules and what they like to see. So, each of them will want to take whatever precautions they think necessary. The captain knows his ship needs repairs, but he doesn't think the damage poses any danger. The hole leads to a ballast tank, which is designed to be filled with water anyway. There are no ship building facilities in Sue St. Marie. He's hoping the Coast Guard will let him continue across Lake Superior to the shipyards there.

[00:22:56]>> Good to go.

[00:22:57]>> Good to go. He gone.

[00:22:59]>> All right.

[00:22:59]>> There's his card just in case.

[00:23:01]>> Okay.

[00:23:05]>> Are they happy?

[00:23:06]>> Yeah, he was happy.

[00:23:08]>> That's very good news. Very good news.

[00:23:13]Uh well, hopefully things are starting to go our way maybe.

[00:23:17]And I think what they want to do is give uh Duth Coast Guard a heads up so that when they come down and we do the repair and the inspection, they have an idea what they're looking at.

[00:23:27]>> The lock chamber is flooded and the damaged ship rises 6 and 1/2 m level with Superior, mightiest of the Great Lakes.

[00:23:41]>> All right.

[00:23:43]Up ahead, Whitefish Bay is ice choked.

[00:23:47]Past that, the wounded Triggera must now navigate the largest body of fresh water in the world.

[00:23:57]>> Every sailor knows that Lake Superior has claimed hundreds of ships over the years. Cold, rough, wide open, more ocean than lake.

[00:24:08]>> Whitefish Bay warning in effect. Wind south 20 knots increasing to gale 35 early this morning then diminishing to wind. Triggera sails over the grave of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The ore carrier's design was eerily similar. She went down in a gale in 1975 with no survivors. Not even time for a distress call.

[00:24:34]>> Got the old Fitzies right there.

[00:24:37]He's sitting on the bottom.

[00:24:41]that they discovered, you know, where there was some possible shos in here and they might have hit that which uh which in fact weakened them or put a hole and he made it down this far. That's where they found him.

[00:24:53]>> Snow ending early this evening fair.

[00:24:57]White Fish Bay is mainly ice covered.

[00:24:59]These sailors learned long ago that fear accomplishes nothing.

[00:25:06]And they never lose their respect for the awesome power of nature that can make this giant of a ship seem so small.

[00:25:23]The next day brings respit and Tartha is making her cruising speed of 24 kilometers an hour.

[00:25:32]The captain has been in constant contact with his bosses at the Interlake steamship company as well as the Coast Guard and the insurance surveyors. Okay.

[00:25:42]>> Superior Wisconsin is getting close and so is the inspection. They'll be waiting for him at the pier.

[00:25:49]>> Hello, Mark.

[00:25:51]>> Hey, we're in the harbor. So, uh, probably a good hour and a half and, uh, we'll be getting down where we'll be opening it up.

[00:25:59]>> Hour and a half out. Okay.

[00:26:02]>> I'll see you there.

[00:26:03]>> All right. Real good.

[00:26:05]The Coast Guard fell.

[00:26:12]As soon as the vessel is secured, the inspectors and shipyard foremen come aboard.

[00:26:20]A big enough crack could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair as the ship sits idle.

[00:26:30]Captain Dayton takes pride in a job well done. And now the crown jewel of the Interlake Steamship Company fleet is laid up on his watch.

[00:27:00]Careful that camp gets real spongy in the middle. Okay, >> here. I'll get this. Got it.

[00:27:10]What?

[00:27:20]>> That would be your fourth ring.

[00:27:25]>> What the doctor say?

[00:27:26]>> Not good.

[00:27:28]>> Serious. A lot more serious than just a little crack. So hard ice.

[00:27:35]Very hard ice.

[00:27:40]The news is devastating.

[00:27:43]A dozen structural steel braces are bent or cracked outright. The integrity of the hull is severely compromised.

[00:27:52]There is talk of pulling off a 15 m hull plate and talk of 2 weeks in port. The captain has heard enough. Time lost to repairs is money down the drain. And this is not going to be a quick fix.

[00:28:11]4:00 a.m. Duth, Minnesota.

[00:28:15]Triggera's ice damaged hull has been inspected. Captain Dayton is about to hear the verdict.

[00:28:21]>> And then we're also into those uh overheads on the cargo. Those are I think there's four of those.

[00:28:28]>> Five.

[00:28:28]>> Five. six of those >> that were either fractured or and then Nick found another one.

[00:28:36]>> There's a couple where the uh the high floor meets the bottom of the whip frame. Those are all cracked.

[00:28:43]>> He wakes up his boss at the Interlake Steamship Company with a phone call he would rather not make.

[00:28:49]>> Yeah, they they're talking about crap in [music] a 10tx 56 ft piece of plate.

[00:28:56]>> 10 by 50? WA.

[00:28:59]>> Yeah.

[00:29:00]>> Good lord.

[00:29:04]>> 10 by 56 ft.

[00:29:06]>> Yeah. They they found seven frames that [music] are tripped.

[00:29:10]>> I'm appalled.

[00:29:13]>> Well, you're going to be there for more than 4 days.

[00:29:16]>> Yeah, it's a nightmare. The Fraser shipyard foreman predict a long 2 weeks. The repairs cost money. Keeping the crew on the clock costs money. Triggera's first job [music] of the year is a bust.

[00:29:40]The shipwrights start cutting and welding round the clock. They cut access holes into the sides of the cargo holds so they can replace the broken frames from the inside.

[00:29:54]They work at a feverish pace.

[00:30:11]and they finish in 5 days.

[00:30:15]Traa is free to sail.

[00:30:21]>> We're hoping for the best and getting the engines ready to go and we're out of here.

[00:30:27]And it's about time.

[00:30:33]Tragirth crosses the harbor to the Superior Midwest Energy Terminal where her load of coal lies waiting.

[00:30:47]The boom swings out of the way and the onboard crane opens the hatches.

[00:31:11]For the next 10 hours, coal pours into the ship.

[00:31:17]Operator Gregory Mener controls the giant computerized coal loading arm entirely from a wireless panel slung over his shoulder. Loading a mixture of of Decker Coal, Spring Creek Coal, and North Coal.

[00:31:33]>> Traa has five holes. Each can carry 11,000 tons.

[00:31:41]>> The coal comes in through 36 on deck hatches.

[00:31:45]When it's time to unload, it funnels out the bottom of the V-shaped hold.

[00:31:51]It drops onto a 275 m long conveyor that leads to an intricate series of belts that bring the coal out to the ship's distinctive unloading arm. As the ship loads, the duty officer keeps track of every [music] kilo. If the cargo isn't loaded evenly, the stress on the hull could be too much and the ship could break apart.

[00:32:15]I communicate with the engine room, call them. The engineer down there will pump each ballast tank that I want pumped in the sequence that I want it pumped.

[00:32:28]>> We've reached 6 ft in number eight starboard.

[00:32:32]>> All right, security call security. The motor vessel Paul Kera now departing Superior Midwest Energy Terminal outbound Luth Harbor for the lake.

[00:32:51]To me, this is the worst spot on the whole trip. Coming in and out of these bridges, this bridge here, the peers, they're narrow. And here, you're coming out, you're making a 80° turn, and you don't have a lot of room to uh mess around.

[00:33:09]Looking good, Don.

[00:33:11]>> Yep. Just nice and easy.

[00:33:22]>> Triggera hits open water and Captain Dayton is anxious to make up time on his way to St. Clair, Michigan.

[00:33:30]It took 500 railway cars to bring this coal from mines in Montana to Superior, Wisconsin. Triggera will carry this impressive load in one run.

[00:33:42]Shipping is by far the most efficient way of transporting heavy cargo.

[00:33:47]The crew prepares for the next big challenge, the narrow Sue locks.

[00:33:54]To get through the [music] locks and shallow St. Mary's River without further delays, every one of the ship's functions will have to work flawlessly.

[00:34:04]By the time they see the international bridge at Sue St. Marie, Tartha is just 30 hours from St. Clair.

[00:34:13]Captain Dayton must now navigate the Po lock fully loaded and take her safely through the most treacherous waterway on her journey, the Rock Cut. W >> dangerous, dark and shallow with jagged rocks on the bottom.

[00:34:36]The colossal Laker Paul Art Triggera has to negotiate the narrow Po lock at Sue Staint [music] Marie.

[00:34:44]She's 11 days into a trip that should have taken four. The heavy spring ice is to blame. [music] She waits for ships to clear the lock.

[00:34:56]They bring bad news. There's more ice ahead in the river. It's pretty sloppy down there. Uh, you know, it's uh it's all broken up and boy, there's a lot of it. It's just like driving our brick through a snow cone.

[00:35:08]>> Yeah, no kidding. [music] >> So, anyway, good luck to you there. Uh, hope things uh get her straightened out there and uh have a good river transit.

[00:35:16]>> Yeah, you too. Have a good one.

[00:35:18]>> Captain Dayton will do whatever he must to avoid further delays.

[00:35:23]>> But getting through the lock is tougher this time.

[00:35:26][music] The fully loaded ship is drafting deeper. It's harder to maneuver and the ice slows down the whole operation.

[00:35:47]All gone now. All gone.

[00:35:49]>> Okay, >> she's safely through.

[00:36:01]Triggera won't even stop to resupply.

[00:36:05]In a carefully choreographed maneuver, a grub [music] boat pulls alongside.

[00:36:15]It delivers a week's worth of supplies.

[00:36:18]Everything from iceberg lettuce to new engine heads.

[00:36:30]>> The St. Mary's River lies in front of her. She sailed it on her way up to Superior, but [music] it's like a divided highway. On the way down, she will take a different, more perilous route. This time she must pass through the rock cut.

[00:36:47]Rock cut was blasted out of the precamrian shield. The bottom is a saw to mass of boulders. If Traa is drafting too deep, they'll tear her open.

[00:37:00]Triggera's load calculations had better be exact.

[00:37:06]What it really comes down to is mass.

[00:37:09]The ship can take so many ton of cargo and it will and given that amount of cargo it will have so deep a draft.

[00:37:18]Triggera's heavy load leaves less than half a meter of clearance at the bottom.

[00:37:23]Sue Coast Guard traffic control has made it clear that no Coast Guard boats will be working until daylight.

[00:37:34]If Traa attempts the passage, she could win back some precious time.

[00:37:38]Well, they're not working all night. We are, but they're not stopping anybody.

[00:37:46]>> No other ship will hazard the rock cut tonight, but Captain Dayton has done it before, and he will do it this time.

[00:38:05]So, we get to make the first night [music] transit. Oh boy, are we lucky.

[00:38:15]If he's even a few meters off, Tartha [music] could be grounded or wrecked.

[00:38:22]Okay, Doug, let's go left.

[00:38:29]Well, you have to take a look at what the uh water levels are doing. And uh we come down [music] here a lot of times we're dragging our feet and when we get down here to the rock cut we'll have probably a foot and a half of water underneath us.

[00:38:43]The bad part about this it's all can openers rocks things that open up the hall.

[00:38:55]>> It's so shallow there's not enough water for the propellers to bite into. The suction of the turning blades creates gas bubbles. It makes the props inefficient, wears them down.

[00:39:08]Shock waves make the boat sound like she's groaning. The vibration makes Tartha shudder violently.

[00:39:58]Very nice, Doug. Good job.

[00:40:02]By daylight, it's a straight run through Lake Huron, but the final test is ahead.

[00:40:10]Success hinges [music] on Triggera's self unloading conveyor system. Tomorrow it will be tried for the first time this season, and it all has to work without a hitch.

[00:40:24]It was supposed to be a 5-day voyage to pick up coal in Superior, Wisconsin, and deliver it to Detroit Edison. It's now day 12. But the St. Clair River, her home stretch, is near.

[00:40:42]>> We're close to the end. We're uh 2 and 1/2, 3 hours tops from the dock.

[00:40:49]As Trairtha closes in on her destination, mother nature finally gives her a break. A south wind [music] blows away the ice pack. The entrance to the river is clear. Another narrow river.

[00:41:02]Another tight squeeze for the enormous freighter.

[00:41:06]>> All right, we're blowing the horn for the little kids back here.

[00:41:15]>> Hi, guys.

[00:41:17]They're all excited.

[00:41:22]>> Dayton will have to turn her around in a very tight space. And by the time he gets there, night will have fallen.

[00:41:28]>> Well, we're going to come down to uh near the dock and we're going to spin the boat around 180° and uh and dock.

[00:41:36]And we'll do that all in the current.

[00:41:37][music] The first couple times you do it, it's Wow. Yeah, it's an interesting maneuver.

[00:41:43]Like I said, chip panel was the best part of the whole job. Really is.

[00:41:48]>> With the end so close, Dayton's work is almost done.

[00:41:52]>> I got the titles for two books. One is Sailing Lakes from the Seventh Story, and the other one is Middle Age, Middle Class, and Pissed Off. [laughter] I got to write the book, though. I got the titles down.

[00:42:11]The captain begins the tight turn.

[00:42:26]You can see when we [music] get turned around, just because of the way the thing pivots around, the bow comes out.

[00:42:32]So then you got to shove it back over.

[00:42:57]Traga is finally at the dock. Her whole trip comes down to this moment.

[00:43:02]Unloading the coal.

[00:43:06]Her 80 meter boom arm is fed by an internal belt elevator system. It swings 100° to port or starboard.

[00:43:20]Oh, they're okay. back here.

[00:43:32]Conveyor man Brian Gallop has waited patiently the whole trip.

[00:43:36]He'll put the self unloading system through its paces for the first time this year.

[00:43:42]It's complex, intricate, and Tartha can't afford another delay.

[00:43:54]The incredible network of belts and elevators can unload 65 tons a minute, all without the aid of a shorebased crane. [music] It's a huge timesaver.

[00:44:06]Few other ships have the self unloading system.

[00:44:10]It makes one of the most efficient carriers on the lakes.

[00:44:30]14 hours later and 55,000 tons [music] of coal have been unloaded.

[00:44:38]One cargo delivered, one mission down.

[00:44:42]Tragirth has got a whole season in front of her. The big [music] ship is already headed back to Superior.

[00:44:50]Dayton will move as much cargo in the next 10 months as his ship can carry, and they can make as many as 70 trips.

[00:44:58]This crew will push every day until freeze up to gain back the time lost to the ice.

[00:45:05]And did I tell you about my theory about sailors?

[00:45:08]Sailors are the finest people in the world.

[00:45:12]And the mighty ship Paul R. Triggera will give Captain Dayton everything she's got.