IMMEDIATE RELEASE             December 11, 2002
Duluth, Minn., U.S.A.—

Duluth, Minn., U.S.A.—The last American-flag straight-deck bulk carrier still operating on the Great Lakes makes its final call on the Port of Duluth-Superior today (Dec. 11).

The Duluth Seaway Port Authority said the Kinsman Independent, a 50-year-old laker with a World War II steam engine, is scheduled to be retired this winter after carrying its final load of grain from Duluth-Superior to Buffalo, N.Y.

The 647-foot-long ship is due at about 4 p.m. and will load about 15,000 tons of wheat at General Mills Superior Annex B for delivery to Buffalo’s General Mills Frontier Elevator. The grain will be unloaded during the winter and the ship’s owner, Great Lakes Associates, Inc., Cleveland, has announced the vessel will then be either scrapped or sold for use as a floating museum.

“It’s the end of a long, colorful era,” said Duluth Port Director Davis Helberg, whose career began in 1958 as a 17-year-old deckhand aboard a vessel owned by the same company. “It’s sad to see these old boats disappear, but it’s also inevitable.”

Several Canadian straight-deckers will continue to serve the port, Helberg said, but the Kinsman Independent is the last such U.S.-flag vessel in active service. (A “straight-decker,” unlike today’s common self-unloader, requires shoreside equipment for unloading.) Some other U.S.-flag straight-deckers are still afloat, but none is scheduled to return to duty.

Built in 1952 by the Defoe Shipbuilding Co. in Bay City, Mich., the Kinsman Independent began her career owned by Hutchinson Lines and was named the Charles L. Hutchinson. Her engine was built by Bethlehem Steel Corp. in 1941 for the Alcoa Protector, an ocean ship sunk during World War II and later salvaged. The vessel was sold to Ford Motor Co. in 1962 and became the Ernest R. Breech prior to acquisition and renaming by Kinsman Lines (later Great Lakes Associates) in 1988.

The vessel was a regular visitor to the Port of Duluth-Superior throughout her history and in recent years carried about 15 loads of grain annually to Buffalo. Port officials said the Frontier Elevator in Buffalo is being equipped this winter with an unloading hopper and, thus, future grain deliveries will be made with self-unloaders.
The end of straight-decker service also means the end of “grain scooping” by longshoremen in Buffalo. “Scoopers” have been employed in Buffalo since 1882.

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