The
many lives of the Robert M. Fraser
The
Robert M. Fraser was a sumptuous 85-foot motor yacht and not so
many years ago was the pride of Robert Fraser himself, the owner of a
shipyard in Superior.
The R.M. was sleek and fast and more luxuriously appointed than anything the Twin Ports had seen in decades. She sported a stainless steel galley, a huge, well-appointed pilothouse, an owner's cabin fit for a king, an auxiliary engine that could be engaged if the main powerplant broke down, a 35-horsepower bow thruster and a unique glassed-in fantail. She had eye-catching elegance.
In the future, she would become a ship with a past.
Originally she was the Alida, a steam tug built in 1905 by the well known Pusey & Jones Shipbuilding Co. in Wil-mington, Del. She was owned and operated out of Wilmington for at least 12 to 15 years, but little is known about that part of her career.
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The Robert M. Fraser was known for her onboard hospitality. Photo by Pat Labadie |
In the mid-1920s she was purchased by John Cullnan and P.W. Walsh of Chicago and brought to the Great Lakes. Under the name Fred A. Britten she served in the Chicago area for 28 to 30 years, doing marine contracting work.
Around 1952 she was bought by Franklin Sears of Traverse City, Mich. Sears removed her old steam engine and boiler, gave her a new 500-horsepower Cleveland diesel engine and renamed her Frank Sears II.
Within three years she changed owners again, this time becoming part of the big Dravo dredging and contracting fleet. She was brought to Lake Superior and employed by Dravo in the construction of Taconite Harbor. In 1958, now an old tug, she was bought by Duluth's Marine Iron and Shipbuilding Co. and renamed yet again, this time as the Elliott B.
Three years later she was purchased by the Floating Equipment Co. of Duluth, a subsidiary of the Fraser-Nelson Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. Fraser-Nelson ran her as the Sid Gernander, honoring the shipyard's superintendent.
In the winter of 1964-65, Fraser stripped off the tug's cabins, put in a new 700-horsepower Cummins diesel and rebuilt the craft from the deck up. Once the work was complete, she was the luxury yacht Robert M. Fraser.
When the shipyard crew had worked the bugs out of her, the R.M. quickly won a reputation for her rakish silhouette and for the hospitality that was provided on board. She raised a few eyebrows here at the Head of the Lakes, but true notoriety lay ahead.
In 1978 the R.M. was sold to John Gallagher of Sault Ste. Marie and Clyde Fogg of Holland, Mich. They restored her to her original name, Alida.
She was berthed at the Soo, Beaver Island and Holland, Mich., and used for pleasure and occasional towing, a task for which she was no longer ideal suited.
When Gallagher died in 1980 or '81, Fogg sold the craft to Ken Christianson of Rochester, N.Y. Mr. Christianson took Alida to Key West and changed her name yet again, this time to Sea Salvor, and she began a whole new career.
That career was busted in June of 1982, when the trusty old vessel was intercepted off the coast of San Juan, Puerto Rico, by the U.S. Coast Guard, which found 56,000 pounds of marijuana on board. Mr. Christianson reported that he and a crew member had been hijacked and forced to run to Colombia, where the illegal cargo had been put on board.
Officials and courts were skeptical of that account, however, and Mr. Christianson went on to spend 10 years in prison.
Sea Salvor apparently spent those same years lying at a shipyard in San Juan while the government tried to find a buyer. According to official records, she was bought some time in 1992 by Titan Construction Enterprises of Isla Verde, Puerto Rico. Still named Sea Salvor, the little tug seems to have turned over a new leaf.
Pat Labadie, now retired, is the former director of the Lake Superior Maritime Visitors Center in Duluth.
