James R. Barker - Bigger than Titanic!

Here is the James R. Barker arriving in the Twin Ports of Duluth and Superior on October 11, 2021. She was arriving to load western coal from the Midwest Energy Terminal in Superior, Wisconsin. As she made her way through the shipping canal, she let loose with a loud master salute (three long and two short blasts) from her unique-sounding dual horn arrangement. The Aerial Lift Bridge responded in kind. After passing through the shipping canal, I then caught up with her again at Rice's Point as she made a 90-degree reverse pivot and backed under the John A. Blatnik bridge towards the Midwest Energy dock. This is a common manuever for all 1000-foot vessels that load at Midwest Energy, as it allows them to exit the dock by simply going straight forward. It's a little easier to turn a ship when it doesn't have 50,000-60,000 tons of coal on board!

At 1004 feet, the Barker is one of thirteen giant thousand-foot carriers on the Great Lakes. Ask the average person to name a really big ship and they might say the Titanic. And while they wouldn't be wrong, the Titanic was 883 feet in length... or 121 feet shorter than the James R. Barker. To take the comparison further, the Barker can haul up to 63,300 tons of cargo. In comparison, the Titanic's total weight was 52,300 tons. So the Barker can carry the equivalent weight of the Titanic and still have capacity for an additional 11,000 tons. No matter how you cut it, that’s a big ship!

The James R. Barker was built in 1976 by the American Ship Building Company of Lorain, Ohio. According to the Boatnerd website, she is powered by "two 8,000 bhp V-16 cylinder, four stroke cycle, single acting, turbocharged Colt-Pielstick PC2V diesel engines, built by Fairbanks Morse Engine Division of Colt Industries, Beloit, WI driving through a Falk reversing gear box to two Bird-Johnson controllable pitch, stainless steel, four bladed propellers seventeen feet, six inches in diameter." She has the distinction of being the first self-contained 1000-footer to be built with the entire superstructure at the aft end of the vessel. This design would be the model the remaining 1000-footers to be built for Great Lakes service.

Lastly, can any sharp-eyed viewers spot the basketball hoop on the Barker?

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