May 25, 2024 • 24 mins
Jibe Talking talks with Andy Pallotta who is the Public Programs Specialist for the Great Lakes Science Center. Andy talks with us about the William G. Mather Steamship and what the center offers to the public! You can learn more about the steamship and the Great lakes Science Center at https://greatscience.com/explore/exhibits/william-g-mather-steamship & https://greatscience.com/ you can also visit the museum at 601 Erieside Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Well here we are with another episode of jive talking I am
Ted mount and we are broadcasting to you from the Jolly Roger Sailing Club
Where pirates come to play and I always have to use that tagline because people in the club don't like it
So I just like to be you know controversial a little bit today
We have kind of a different kind of a show we have with us Andy. What's your last name?
(00:25):
Okay, what he said
Palada and he is an expert on all the bolts nuts
Screws on the William G Mather
Steamship, is that correct?
So, let me just ask you how what is your title there with the boat like what would they say your title?
(00:50):
Everybody has to have a title these days. Well, I mean at the Great Lakes Science Center
I'm the public programs specialist. So I'm in charge of public facing
programming like our
presentations and demos and the Mather sort of falls under that
So I train all the people who explain all the nuts and bolts and give tours on the ship
(01:18):
Okay. Okay
Now I was looking it looks like this boat went into operation went when did it early 20s?
Yeah, 1925 was when it was first put into operation
Now that's kind of interesting because that would have been just kind of just before the Great Depression kind of kicked off, huh?
(01:39):
Yeah, and they kept working through the Great Depression
It was an ore boat
So they needed steel and iron so the company stayed afloat pun intended
Simply because the need for iron was so great
Now what ports would that first of all first of all, how large is this?
(02:02):
But once you give us some kind of a some parameters dimensions if you will
So people have an idea what we're talking about and this is called. This was called a steamship. Is that how we call it?
Yeah, the steamship William G. Mather
So the steamship is 618 feet long
62 feet wide 32 feet tall
(02:27):
That's pretty big
Now was it did it stay only in the Great Lakes?
Yeah, it stayed in the Great Lakes. In fact, it only stayed in Erie
Huron and
Superior
Never went into Ontario, but it wasn't designed for saltwater
(02:49):
So never left the Great Lakes. Okay. We're now joined by our co-host
Phil Frye and like I told you earlier he was on another another podcast
We were lucky enough to have the problem of having two in the same day now
Why don't you go ahead give us just give us the dimensions of this ship again
It's 618 feet long. It's 62 feet wide and it's 32 feet tall
(03:12):
And you said this was stayed primarily you said on Lake Erie
Lake Superior did you say
Yeah, and a little bit of Huron, but Huron was sort of a pass through and this moved mainly ore
Yeah, iron ore they would carry coal
And grain because if you weren't carrying anything you weren't making money
(03:37):
Coal or grain to
Drop off and then pick up iron ore for the steel mills. That must have made the grain taste pretty good with all that ore in there
Of course back then that didn't matter did it
Well, I suppose not well, I don't know I just just thought about it
(03:57):
I guess you don't have to worry about being low on iron or anything, right?
No, that's that's iron fortified. It was iron fortified grain or actually or fortified. It wasn't iron yet, right? Oh, okay
Yeah, yeah. Well tell me you know, what would it have what would life have been like on
On a steamship in the early 20 or in the mid to 20s to 30s. What would it have been like?
(04:21):
So since the matter was built a flagship. It was pretty nice compared comparatively
even compared to
houses of the time
The matter had running water heat electricity and all the crew cabins
Which was better than most of the houses that people had at the time?
(04:42):
They worked four hours shifts
So four hours on eight hours off around the clock
Unless you were in the engine room, then it was three hours on six hours off
but
Depending on your job
You could either have somebody like a coal pass or a fireman who was working with the boilers
Or you can have one of the wheels men who was literally just turning the wheel
(05:05):
So everybody had sort of their own jobs
But no matter what they were all treated
With a lot of respect and they gave
all the crew really good meals
So
It was tough work. It was really tough work
(05:26):
But they had a lot of sort of comforts built into how the ship was designed
Now did they if they worked were they pretty much they weren't obviously on like a five-day workweek
Like when they would go out for a sail or a cruise, however, you want to call it. How long would they be gone?
Before they would get off again
(05:47):
So the trip that they took took about three days to get up
They would go to Superior, Wisconsin and Duluth, Minnesota
That would take about three days and then that's a day to unload
Whatever they were carrying and then they could spend some time in the port city
Then they had three days to get back
(06:07):
They would take that trip about 30 times a year. So typically they would stay on May through December
all those months
living and working on the ship
Okay, so they wouldn't so even on their days off they wouldn't like go back home or anything
Yeah, it depends on like
if they were between shipments then they might get some time off and
(06:33):
spend time with their families, but
usually it was back-to-back getting one cargo and then
going back getting another cargo and just
taking a week
to
do that tour and
deliver cargo
Then
(06:54):
Now when you say crew, how many crew would be on the ship?
in
1925 was around 38
But then by 1980 they did a lot of automation with the boilers and
various other pieces of technology and so you got down to about 29 people running the ship in 1980
(07:18):
So was it always steam powered or did it did it switch away from that then?
It was always steam. They switched the fuel in
1953 so from 1925 1953 it was coal
And then in 1953 they redid the boiler to run on number six fuel oil
(07:40):
and they changed the engine and
Made the ship a little more powerful
And it could go a little faster so they could get more cargo faster
But yeah, so it ran on steam the entire lifetime
but
Up until 1953. It was cold from then on it was oil
So what would this cruising speed of a ship like that be?
(08:04):
Well, of course, it'd probably be different empty or full. I'm sure, huh?
Yeah
average speed was
12 miles an hour when it was on the ship
Was 12 miles an hour when it was on running on coal and then once they re-powered the cruising speeders around 15 miles an hour
That's substantial
Yeah
Substantial increase now
(08:25):
Was that empty or was that full or empty? That's still top speed
It was top speed when it was full was 15 miles an hour
Okay
Okay
And so the so the numbers of crew went down now what what year was this taken out of?
service
It was 1980
(08:48):
1980 exactly and then the museum acquired it how long it went
We acquired it in 2005. Okay
And so there's a timeline there of
In 1980 the boat was retired
um the great lakes historical society, um
(09:09):
acquired it by around 1987
and they started working on
um
Turning into a museum and then in 1991 it opened as a museum
um
and
Then 1995 harbor heritage took over operations of it and in 2005 it was moved and
(09:31):
Um merged with the science center that all was finished up by 2006
And has gordon lightfoot ever written a song about this boat, that's a great yeah
There's no record
There's no record of it. Oh, so, okay
We we do have an exhibit about the edmund fitzgerald and when people come aboard
(09:55):
We get three different questions. They're the most common
The most common question is is this the titanic?
And of course the answer is yes
um
Second question is is this the edmund fitzgerald?
And the answer is yes
um, obviously it's not no we we just like to give people a
(10:16):
a little joke, but it's um completely separate from those and then the third question is
Uh, can we take a spin out to canada with this?
Yes
Do you do that should we come up and take a cruise do we go to canada?
Um, we can't um, so it's anchored for one thing, but there's um, you can pull the anchor up
(10:40):
Yeah, we can pull the anchor up
Um, but it's uh, it is floating which is really awesome
But it's um, there's a door cut into one of the ballast tanks, which isn't great
And then there's concrete in the ballast tanks the engine's broken
The um furnace is broken
It might be slow a little slower than that 15 miles an hour then
(11:03):
Yeah, it would probably be um
like zero like
One mile every five weeks or something like that. Like it wouldn't it wouldn't be very that would be like on the freeway in california
Was there ever a ever a point in time?
and I I
Somehow in distant memory. I've i've heard this that you could
Book a commercial passage on a lake freighter. Is that was that ever the case?
(11:28):
You could be a passenger
Um the company that owned the mather cleveland cliffs
They didn't sell tickets like you couldn't um
You couldn't buy a ticket to take a trip on a ship like the mather but um, you could be invited on board
as a guest
(11:50):
Um, you could draw like a raffle prize and win a prize to take a trip on the mather. So it has guest rooms
for 10 to 12 guests that could take trips, um during the
um
The sunny summer season
Oh, that would be interesting. Yeah, probably not great in november
(12:11):
No
Especially on lake superior. Yeah. Well, you wouldn't I wouldn't want to be out there. No
No, no, not like superior. So
That's interesting. Do people really think that's the edmund fitzgerald. Is that just a joke?
I I I don't know. I think it's a joke
Um, you never know sometimes you never know. Um, sometimes we get like really little kids and the only big boat
(12:34):
They've ever heard of the titanic. So that makes more sense
Yeah, I would agree with that
Yeah
I would agree. Yeah, I don't know why I don't know why people ask if it's the edmund fitzgerald
Yeah
Now how many uh, I know you said it went into operation you said in 25
Is that one?
Okay, how long did it take to build it?
(12:57):
A build a big ship like that
It took about a year. Oh that as long as I would think
Yeah, they um, they put it together in michigan
And it's all riveted plate and they just had a huge team. It cost a million dollars to build it 1925 money
Um and just riveted plate so they just had a bunch of
(13:18):
um, just a huge team of
people just
Throwing it together very quickly
So if it so in 1920s million dollars
um
Obviously substantially more than that today's dollars
What would be how many years would the ship have to be in operation for it to break even? Oh, that's a good question
(13:41):
Um, that is a good question. I i'm not sure of the
Um the exchange rate of the the cargo but the fact that it was taking 30 30 trips a year
um
my my
Educated guess my hypothesis in the science work is that it would break even very very quickly
(14:05):
um the
Company had a fleet of ships
um, and they were constantly
running them
Um on the great lakes and so they were um, probably breaking in the cash on this cargo
I don't suspect it would take too long
um to
Break even on that investment
(14:27):
Now correct me if i'm wrong might sometimes my history is not good, but the carnegies they were into steel, right?
Yeah, would they have been have any money funded something like this or not really so
I think the cleveland coast honor company was separate from them
Um, william g matter was the son of the guy who founded the company and he was their president
(14:52):
um
For a while so it was named after him
uh simply because he was one of the highest ranking people and the company was
separate from carnegie and
Um there it is in just nice
Okay, now how many like a boat this big how many screws would it have?
(15:16):
Um thousands thousands no, I meant I mean the propellers propellers. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Yeah
I thought man, that's it. That's a crazy ship. Oh, yeah
Yeah, tiny tiny little propellers, um one propeller one single screw how big I mean, how much did it weigh?
It weighs about 18 000 pounds
(15:39):
And it's 15 feet wide
Is that uh still below the water line or has that been recovered and somewhere in the museum since cement?
Oh, no, no
the um, so since the ship is uh
Sort of riding really really high now
Um and half of the propeller is out of the water
(16:00):
so when you visit it you exit and you get to
Um see the propeller half of it, um peeking out out of the water
So what what kind of material is is that propeller made out of what kind of metal?
um, it is
pretty much solid steel and
(16:22):
bronze
um
Let me actually look up. However
uh
I know it's in my my data
That's all right. I just I just was curious, you know, uh, I know like those like a lot of you see a lot of brass props
But I was gonna say nothing that big. It's not balsa wood. I can tell you that it's not made out of balsa
Maybe birch
(16:43):
You never know. I mean, you know
You know what the carnegies did probably steel they probably made their own prop
Yeah, that's okay. That's not that big of a deal. I just I just I just was curious, you know, it's just curious
so
Well, you know now that you kind of broach the subject how many actual screws or rivets are in it?
You you know you brought that up. Yeah now we need to know
(17:06):
There are exactly one million nine hundred and twenty thousand
No, I just I was gonna buy it keep going
Keep going
That's a let's who's gonna count them and prove you're wrong
Well, yeah, no one's gonna count you count them and prove you're wrong. Yeah now
(17:30):
A ship like this. How much how much draft does that need?
about 20
It depends on the what do you say 20 22 20 20 to 22 feet
Oh that limits a lot that limits a lot of uh areas you can operate in well, that's why there's a shipping channel
(17:53):
I knew that you know, I actually know it and I wasn't thinking about that. But
Yeah
What channel is it?
It's the teledo shipping chain. Oh, I just I thought you meant on tv. No, no, no, it's not like that kind of channel
Okay. All right. So so then they had the channel like
Going up detroit. It would have to go up to detroit river. Well, is that deep? How deep is the detroit river?
(18:15):
Do you know or do you know phil?
I have no idea how deep it is, but I know there are freighters that yeah traverse it all the time
Yeah, there are that's the only way up into into here on yeah, and then from there into superior
Yeah, I think the primary problem is in the western basin. That's so shallow
I think that's that's where you've got to really be careful about staying in the channel
(18:38):
Would that ship have ever come to Toledo? Because I know we do a lot of ore. We used to do a lot of ore out of Toledo
Yeah, I mean it would um
Typically work in Cleveland
Um for the ore but any other cargo they would go to Toledo,
Ashtabula anywhere that they could get another cargo
(18:59):
Um to bring up norms
Norms so they so they probably we also have a lot of grain here
So they might have gotten some of that that ore laden grain that we use for yeah
Yeah, now we that's probably why everybody gets gets sick around. No, i'm just kidding about that. But
So that's interesting. That's interesting. So if I were going to come to see this is this ship open year round?
(19:24):
It's not open. It opens in may. Okay, those seasons may for october
um
And it's weekends only in may and then in june we open it up
every day except monday
Um, and then in october we close down again. So it's just weekends in october. Yeah, like um
(19:45):
If you want to see it you have to come
May through october
Okay. Okay now where
What address is this actually located like somebody like one of the three people listen to the show sat, you know
I'd like to go see that steam ship
Give them the address. Where is it at?
We're at one
Here inside avenue in freepoint, ohio
(20:09):
Okay
And now is the is the is the other museum right there like this is attached to tell them the name of the museum
This is this is affiliated with
um great lake science center is the main museum and
the uh
It's right outside on the harbor. So okay like maybe 30 feet away from the museum
(20:32):
Now how much does it cost to see this thing?
Uh, it's only about ten dollars. Oh, that's pretty affordable
Yeah, and then you have discounts for if you're a member of the science center
Okay
How about if you're old do they have any like senior discounts
(20:52):
Yeah
Oh absolutely
There you go. Have you ever thought about doing ghost tours on board this ship? Oh, that's a great question
Really okay, you don't need to tell them that story
We we were we were out in putting bay one time
(21:14):
uh for um, uh a sailing week and we were
We were assisting the young man there trying to sell ghost tours. He was not happy that we were helping him
But we were just waiting on the water taxi. So we were just having some fun
But so then we always ask about ghost tours. So you do do you do something for halloween then is what you're saying?
(21:34):
We use um, there's a lot of like but we want to bring them back, but we just have to bring them back in the right way
Um, so we just have to like plan it out. Um, we haven't done them in years. We still have all the decorations
um
But
It's just a matter of like planning them out. I don't think I would use those pumpkins
(21:57):
You've been saving though. They might be kind of rotted. I don't know
No
It could be they make could become like a gourd then don't they when they when they dry up?
Well, that's beyond our abilities
Um, do you have any questions phil? No. No, I think you've done a good job
I uh, I appreciate very much you coming on with us today
Um, I myself I think i'm gonna venture over there here in the spring
(22:20):
Uh, I would like to see the ship and go for a little tour. Oh, I know what I wanted to ask you
I see online. You have something called a hard hat tour. What is that?
All right, so we have the standard self-guided tour. That's a ten dollar job. That's the ten dollars. All right, but
on weekends in the summer
We offer hard hat tours where you get to go into all the areas that are normally blocked off
(22:47):
so places like the um,
The pump deck of the engine room you get to go inside the stack casing and see the smokestack
Um, you get to go into a place called the dark hold where the bow thruster used to be
Um, so it's a hard hat tour because you have to wear hard hat and safety goggles
There's low hanging pipes. There's all of the um
(23:11):
The bowels of the ship and all the pipes and uh machinery that people don't normally get to see
But can we blow the horn or is that an extra fee?
Oh
You can ring the bell
Well, it does that come with the hard hat tour do we have to pay more for that?
Uh, that's that's complimentary complimentary ring up a bit. I might have to do that as you can tell here at the club today
(23:34):
We are having another function and somebody's just knocked over some cheers. So it sounds like a ball in la right now
I think it's my sister, but I wouldn't want to say that on online. But anyways, yeah too late. It's out there
No, it is out there in the universe. It's out there in the universe
Well, thank you very much for coming on with us
We will send you a link for this so you can listen and um, I look forward to coming up there this summer
(23:55):
Absolutely
Um, thanks for having me. Um, i'll just plug the science center great science.com
You plug whatever you want. Here we go. Yeah, if you if you're interested in the matter great science.com is where you can buy tickets
Um, we start posting
uh
Those hard hat tours
Starting in late may. Okay, so you'll be able to to get in and get your reservation on those. All right
(24:21):
Well, thank you very much. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. We'll talk to you later then
Absolutely
Well here we are with another episode of jive talking I am
Ted mount and we are broadcasting to you from the Jolly Roger Sailing Club
Where pirates come to play and I always have to use that tagline because people in the club don't like it
So I just like to be you know controversial a little bit today
We have kind of a different kind of a show we have with us Andy. What's your last name?
(00:25):
Okay, what he said
Palada and he is an expert on all the bolts nuts
Screws on the William G Mather
Steamship, is that correct?
So, let me just ask you how what is your title there with the boat like what would they say your title?
(00:50):
Everybody has to have a title these days. Well, I mean at the Great Lakes Science Center
I'm the public programs specialist. So I'm in charge of public facing
programming like our
presentations and demos and the Mather sort of falls under that
So I train all the people who explain all the nuts and bolts and give tours on the ship
(01:18):
Okay. Okay
Now I was looking it looks like this boat went into operation went when did it early 20s?
Yeah, 1925 was when it was first put into operation
Now that's kind of interesting because that would have been just kind of just before the Great Depression kind of kicked off, huh?
(01:39):
Yeah, and they kept working through the Great Depression
It was an ore boat
So they needed steel and iron so the company stayed afloat pun intended
Simply because the need for iron was so great
Now what ports would that first of all first of all, how large is this?
(02:02):
But once you give us some kind of a some parameters dimensions if you will
So people have an idea what we're talking about and this is called. This was called a steamship. Is that how we call it?
Yeah, the steamship William G. Mather
So the steamship is 618 feet long
62 feet wide 32 feet tall
(02:27):
That's pretty big
Now was it did it stay only in the Great Lakes?
Yeah, it stayed in the Great Lakes. In fact, it only stayed in Erie
Huron and
Superior
Never went into Ontario, but it wasn't designed for saltwater
(02:49):
So never left the Great Lakes. Okay. We're now joined by our co-host
Phil Frye and like I told you earlier he was on another another podcast
We were lucky enough to have the problem of having two in the same day now
Why don't you go ahead give us just give us the dimensions of this ship again
It's 618 feet long. It's 62 feet wide and it's 32 feet tall
(03:12):
And you said this was stayed primarily you said on Lake Erie
Lake Superior did you say
Yeah, and a little bit of Huron, but Huron was sort of a pass through and this moved mainly ore
Yeah, iron ore they would carry coal
And grain because if you weren't carrying anything you weren't making money
(03:37):
Coal or grain to
Drop off and then pick up iron ore for the steel mills. That must have made the grain taste pretty good with all that ore in there
Of course back then that didn't matter did it
Well, I suppose not well, I don't know I just just thought about it
(03:57):
I guess you don't have to worry about being low on iron or anything, right?
No, that's that's iron fortified. It was iron fortified grain or actually or fortified. It wasn't iron yet, right? Oh, okay
Yeah, yeah. Well tell me you know, what would it have what would life have been like on
On a steamship in the early 20 or in the mid to 20s to 30s. What would it have been like?
(04:21):
So since the matter was built a flagship. It was pretty nice compared comparatively
even compared to
houses of the time
The matter had running water heat electricity and all the crew cabins
Which was better than most of the houses that people had at the time?
(04:42):
They worked four hours shifts
So four hours on eight hours off around the clock
Unless you were in the engine room, then it was three hours on six hours off
but
Depending on your job
You could either have somebody like a coal pass or a fireman who was working with the boilers
Or you can have one of the wheels men who was literally just turning the wheel
(05:05):
So everybody had sort of their own jobs
But no matter what they were all treated
With a lot of respect and they gave
all the crew really good meals
So
It was tough work. It was really tough work
(05:26):
But they had a lot of sort of comforts built into how the ship was designed
Now did they if they worked were they pretty much they weren't obviously on like a five-day workweek
Like when they would go out for a sail or a cruise, however, you want to call it. How long would they be gone?
Before they would get off again
(05:47):
So the trip that they took took about three days to get up
They would go to Superior, Wisconsin and Duluth, Minnesota
That would take about three days and then that's a day to unload
Whatever they were carrying and then they could spend some time in the port city
Then they had three days to get back
(06:07):
They would take that trip about 30 times a year. So typically they would stay on May through December
all those months
living and working on the ship
Okay, so they wouldn't so even on their days off they wouldn't like go back home or anything
Yeah, it depends on like
if they were between shipments then they might get some time off and
(06:33):
spend time with their families, but
usually it was back-to-back getting one cargo and then
going back getting another cargo and just
taking a week
to
do that tour and
deliver cargo
Then
(06:54):
Now when you say crew, how many crew would be on the ship?
in
1925 was around 38
But then by 1980 they did a lot of automation with the boilers and
various other pieces of technology and so you got down to about 29 people running the ship in 1980
(07:18):
So was it always steam powered or did it did it switch away from that then?
It was always steam. They switched the fuel in
1953 so from 1925 1953 it was coal
And then in 1953 they redid the boiler to run on number six fuel oil
(07:40):
and they changed the engine and
Made the ship a little more powerful
And it could go a little faster so they could get more cargo faster
But yeah, so it ran on steam the entire lifetime
but
Up until 1953. It was cold from then on it was oil
So what would this cruising speed of a ship like that be?
(08:04):
Well, of course, it'd probably be different empty or full. I'm sure, huh?
Yeah
average speed was
12 miles an hour when it was on the ship
Was 12 miles an hour when it was on running on coal and then once they re-powered the cruising speeders around 15 miles an hour
That's substantial
Yeah
Substantial increase now
(08:25):
Was that empty or was that full or empty? That's still top speed
It was top speed when it was full was 15 miles an hour
Okay
Okay
And so the so the numbers of crew went down now what what year was this taken out of?
service
It was 1980
(08:48):
1980 exactly and then the museum acquired it how long it went
We acquired it in 2005. Okay
And so there's a timeline there of
In 1980 the boat was retired
um the great lakes historical society, um
(09:09):
acquired it by around 1987
and they started working on
um
Turning into a museum and then in 1991 it opened as a museum
um
and
Then 1995 harbor heritage took over operations of it and in 2005 it was moved and
(09:31):
Um merged with the science center that all was finished up by 2006
And has gordon lightfoot ever written a song about this boat, that's a great yeah
There's no record
There's no record of it. Oh, so, okay
We we do have an exhibit about the edmund fitzgerald and when people come aboard
(09:55):
We get three different questions. They're the most common
The most common question is is this the titanic?
And of course the answer is yes
um
Second question is is this the edmund fitzgerald?
And the answer is yes
um, obviously it's not no we we just like to give people a
(10:16):
a little joke, but it's um completely separate from those and then the third question is
Uh, can we take a spin out to canada with this?
Yes
Do you do that should we come up and take a cruise do we go to canada?
Um, we can't um, so it's anchored for one thing, but there's um, you can pull the anchor up
(10:40):
Yeah, we can pull the anchor up
Um, but it's uh, it is floating which is really awesome
But it's um, there's a door cut into one of the ballast tanks, which isn't great
And then there's concrete in the ballast tanks the engine's broken
The um furnace is broken
It might be slow a little slower than that 15 miles an hour then
(11:03):
Yeah, it would probably be um
like zero like
One mile every five weeks or something like that. Like it wouldn't it wouldn't be very that would be like on the freeway in california
Was there ever a ever a point in time?
and I I
Somehow in distant memory. I've i've heard this that you could
Book a commercial passage on a lake freighter. Is that was that ever the case?
(11:28):
You could be a passenger
Um the company that owned the mather cleveland cliffs
They didn't sell tickets like you couldn't um
You couldn't buy a ticket to take a trip on a ship like the mather but um, you could be invited on board
as a guest
(11:50):
Um, you could draw like a raffle prize and win a prize to take a trip on the mather. So it has guest rooms
for 10 to 12 guests that could take trips, um during the
um
The sunny summer season
Oh, that would be interesting. Yeah, probably not great in november
(12:11):
No
Especially on lake superior. Yeah. Well, you wouldn't I wouldn't want to be out there. No
No, no, not like superior. So
That's interesting. Do people really think that's the edmund fitzgerald. Is that just a joke?
I I I don't know. I think it's a joke
Um, you never know sometimes you never know. Um, sometimes we get like really little kids and the only big boat
(12:34):
They've ever heard of the titanic. So that makes more sense
Yeah, I would agree with that
Yeah
I would agree. Yeah, I don't know why I don't know why people ask if it's the edmund fitzgerald
Yeah
Now how many uh, I know you said it went into operation you said in 25
Is that one?
Okay, how long did it take to build it?
(12:57):
A build a big ship like that
It took about a year. Oh that as long as I would think
Yeah, they um, they put it together in michigan
And it's all riveted plate and they just had a huge team. It cost a million dollars to build it 1925 money
Um and just riveted plate so they just had a bunch of
(13:18):
um, just a huge team of
people just
Throwing it together very quickly
So if it so in 1920s million dollars
um
Obviously substantially more than that today's dollars
What would be how many years would the ship have to be in operation for it to break even? Oh, that's a good question
(13:41):
Um, that is a good question. I i'm not sure of the
Um the exchange rate of the the cargo but the fact that it was taking 30 30 trips a year
um
my my
Educated guess my hypothesis in the science work is that it would break even very very quickly
(14:05):
um the
Company had a fleet of ships
um, and they were constantly
running them
Um on the great lakes and so they were um, probably breaking in the cash on this cargo
I don't suspect it would take too long
um to
Break even on that investment
(14:27):
Now correct me if i'm wrong might sometimes my history is not good, but the carnegies they were into steel, right?
Yeah, would they have been have any money funded something like this or not really so
I think the cleveland coast honor company was separate from them
Um, william g matter was the son of the guy who founded the company and he was their president
(14:52):
um
For a while so it was named after him
uh simply because he was one of the highest ranking people and the company was
separate from carnegie and
Um there it is in just nice
Okay, now how many like a boat this big how many screws would it have?
(15:16):
Um thousands thousands no, I meant I mean the propellers propellers. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Yeah
I thought man, that's it. That's a crazy ship. Oh, yeah
Yeah, tiny tiny little propellers, um one propeller one single screw how big I mean, how much did it weigh?
It weighs about 18 000 pounds
(15:39):
And it's 15 feet wide
Is that uh still below the water line or has that been recovered and somewhere in the museum since cement?
Oh, no, no
the um, so since the ship is uh
Sort of riding really really high now
Um and half of the propeller is out of the water
(16:00):
so when you visit it you exit and you get to
Um see the propeller half of it, um peeking out out of the water
So what what kind of material is is that propeller made out of what kind of metal?
um, it is
pretty much solid steel and
(16:22):
bronze
um
Let me actually look up. However
uh
I know it's in my my data
That's all right. I just I just was curious, you know, uh, I know like those like a lot of you see a lot of brass props
But I was gonna say nothing that big. It's not balsa wood. I can tell you that it's not made out of balsa
Maybe birch
(16:43):
You never know. I mean, you know
You know what the carnegies did probably steel they probably made their own prop
Yeah, that's okay. That's not that big of a deal. I just I just I just was curious, you know, it's just curious
so
Well, you know now that you kind of broach the subject how many actual screws or rivets are in it?
You you know you brought that up. Yeah now we need to know
(17:06):
There are exactly one million nine hundred and twenty thousand
No, I just I was gonna buy it keep going
Keep going
That's a let's who's gonna count them and prove you're wrong
Well, yeah, no one's gonna count you count them and prove you're wrong. Yeah now
(17:30):
A ship like this. How much how much draft does that need?
about 20
It depends on the what do you say 20 22 20 20 to 22 feet
Oh that limits a lot that limits a lot of uh areas you can operate in well, that's why there's a shipping channel
(17:53):
I knew that you know, I actually know it and I wasn't thinking about that. But
Yeah
What channel is it?
It's the teledo shipping chain. Oh, I just I thought you meant on tv. No, no, no, it's not like that kind of channel
Okay. All right. So so then they had the channel like
Going up detroit. It would have to go up to detroit river. Well, is that deep? How deep is the detroit river?
(18:15):
Do you know or do you know phil?
I have no idea how deep it is, but I know there are freighters that yeah traverse it all the time
Yeah, there are that's the only way up into into here on yeah, and then from there into superior
Yeah, I think the primary problem is in the western basin. That's so shallow
I think that's that's where you've got to really be careful about staying in the channel
(18:38):
Would that ship have ever come to Toledo? Because I know we do a lot of ore. We used to do a lot of ore out of Toledo
Yeah, I mean it would um
Typically work in Cleveland
Um for the ore but any other cargo they would go to Toledo,
Ashtabula anywhere that they could get another cargo
(18:59):
Um to bring up norms
Norms so they so they probably we also have a lot of grain here
So they might have gotten some of that that ore laden grain that we use for yeah
Yeah, now we that's probably why everybody gets gets sick around. No, i'm just kidding about that. But
So that's interesting. That's interesting. So if I were going to come to see this is this ship open year round?
(19:24):
It's not open. It opens in may. Okay, those seasons may for october
um
And it's weekends only in may and then in june we open it up
every day except monday
Um, and then in october we close down again. So it's just weekends in october. Yeah, like um
(19:45):
If you want to see it you have to come
May through october
Okay. Okay now where
What address is this actually located like somebody like one of the three people listen to the show sat, you know
I'd like to go see that steam ship
Give them the address. Where is it at?
We're at one
Here inside avenue in freepoint, ohio
(20:09):
Okay
And now is the is the is the other museum right there like this is attached to tell them the name of the museum
This is this is affiliated with
um great lake science center is the main museum and
the uh
It's right outside on the harbor. So okay like maybe 30 feet away from the museum
(20:32):
Now how much does it cost to see this thing?
Uh, it's only about ten dollars. Oh, that's pretty affordable
Yeah, and then you have discounts for if you're a member of the science center
Okay
How about if you're old do they have any like senior discounts
(20:52):
Yeah
Oh absolutely
There you go. Have you ever thought about doing ghost tours on board this ship? Oh, that's a great question
Really okay, you don't need to tell them that story
We we were we were out in putting bay one time
(21:14):
uh for um, uh a sailing week and we were
We were assisting the young man there trying to sell ghost tours. He was not happy that we were helping him
But we were just waiting on the water taxi. So we were just having some fun
But so then we always ask about ghost tours. So you do do you do something for halloween then is what you're saying?
(21:34):
We use um, there's a lot of like but we want to bring them back, but we just have to bring them back in the right way
Um, so we just have to like plan it out. Um, we haven't done them in years. We still have all the decorations
um
But
It's just a matter of like planning them out. I don't think I would use those pumpkins
(21:57):
You've been saving though. They might be kind of rotted. I don't know
No
It could be they make could become like a gourd then don't they when they when they dry up?
Well, that's beyond our abilities
Um, do you have any questions phil? No. No, I think you've done a good job
I uh, I appreciate very much you coming on with us today
Um, I myself I think i'm gonna venture over there here in the spring
(22:20):
Uh, I would like to see the ship and go for a little tour. Oh, I know what I wanted to ask you
I see online. You have something called a hard hat tour. What is that?
All right, so we have the standard self-guided tour. That's a ten dollar job. That's the ten dollars. All right, but
on weekends in the summer
We offer hard hat tours where you get to go into all the areas that are normally blocked off
(22:47):
so places like the um,
The pump deck of the engine room you get to go inside the stack casing and see the smokestack
Um, you get to go into a place called the dark hold where the bow thruster used to be
Um, so it's a hard hat tour because you have to wear hard hat and safety goggles
There's low hanging pipes. There's all of the um
(23:11):
The bowels of the ship and all the pipes and uh machinery that people don't normally get to see
But can we blow the horn or is that an extra fee?
Oh
You can ring the bell
Well, it does that come with the hard hat tour do we have to pay more for that?
Uh, that's that's complimentary complimentary ring up a bit. I might have to do that as you can tell here at the club today
(23:34):
We are having another function and somebody's just knocked over some cheers. So it sounds like a ball in la right now
I think it's my sister, but I wouldn't want to say that on online. But anyways, yeah too late. It's out there
No, it is out there in the universe. It's out there in the universe
Well, thank you very much for coming on with us
We will send you a link for this so you can listen and um, I look forward to coming up there this summer
(23:55):
Absolutely
Um, thanks for having me. Um, i'll just plug the science center great science.com
You plug whatever you want. Here we go. Yeah, if you if you're interested in the matter great science.com is where you can buy tickets
Um, we start posting
uh
Those hard hat tours
Starting in late may. Okay, so you'll be able to to get in and get your reservation on those. All right
(24:21):
Well, thank you very much. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. We'll talk to you later then
Absolutely
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