Wilfred Sykes - Howling Loudly Under a Blood Red Moon

Note: While we wait for the 2022 shipping season to start, I am uploading a series of videos I captured in 2021 but haven't published until now. Most of these were held back so we'd have something to enjoy during the off-season, though a few were held back for other reasons. Since I have a good number of these videos, I'll try doing daily uploads for most of this month.

Here is the Wilfred Sykes arriving in Duluth, Minnesota at 1:45 in the morning on September 2, 2021. She would unload limestone at the Graymont in Superior before eventually making her way over to the Canadian National dock in West Duluth to load sinter feed from the gravity-fed dock. The sinter feed would then be delivered to Indiana Harbor, Indiana. For this arrival, I captured the Sykes entering the shipping canal under a red crescent moon. Not only was the Sykes willing to blow a salute at 1:45am, she let loose with a fine master salute to let Duluth know she was back in town. The Aerial Lift Bridge happily responded in kind. Some nights in the bridge control room must get awfully boring, so it must be fun to let the horns blow late at night!

The Sykes was one of the real stars of the 2021 shipping season. After not having loaded in Duluth since 1997, she made several visits in 2021... occasionally making the trip that her fleet mate the Joseph L. Block would sometimes make... though we saw the Block several times too. Here's hoping we see the Sykes make several visits in 2022. Not only is it nice to see a classic steamer visiting the Twin Ports, it's hard to find one with prettier lines and markings than the Sykes has. (She may have competition if they ever re-activate her fleet mate the Edward L. Ryerson, however!)

The 678-foot Wilfred Sykes was built in 1949 by the American Shipbuilding Company of Lorain, Ohio. She was the first American lake carrier built after World War II and was in many ways she signaled a new age in Great Lakes shipping. Her two steam turbine engines produce a combined 7,700 horsepower, burning "bunker C" heavy fuel oil instead of coal, making her the first laker to do so. (Several lakers would later be retrofitted to burn fuel oil, but the Sykes was the first laker designed to do so from her conception.) She has 18 hatch covers that access six cargo holds capable of holding 21,500 tons of cargo. The Sykes was converted to a self-unloader in 1975 and given a 250-foot self-unloading boom. She is one of five steam-powered lake carriers still in service, with the others being the Alpena, Arthur M. Anderson, Cason J. Callaway, and Philip R. Clarke. (The Clarke and Callaway were laid up in 2021, however, with uncertain futures.) All five have been documented on this channel, so check through my videos to see them in action!

If you would like to re-visit the highlights of the 2021 shipping season, be sure to check out this video showing 45 different lake carriers I captured last year: https://youtu.be/TLTrdVa_qC4

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