Sad days for the John Sherwin

Flying down the ship channel from Sault Ste. Marie a couple of weeks back, I overflew this old steamer tied up in an out-of-the-way mooring just outside of De Tour, Mi.

I orbited her a couple of times and took some pictures, but other than peg her as an Interlakes boat by her color scheme and the marking on her stack, I couldn't conclusively identify her until I got home and used the computer to clean up the pictures.

She's the John Sherwin.

Built in 1958 as a 710ft. long coal-fired straight-decker, she was lengthened to 806 feet during the 1972/73 layup when she was also converted to an oil-burner.

Poor gal's been laid up in storage in various ports since 1981 other than a short stint as a grain storage barge on Lake Michigan. Interlakes keeps talking about converting her to a self-unloader and re-powering her with new diesels but it hasn't happened yet and by the looks of it, it won't be happening any time soon.

A close-up of her stern shows that her screw's been removed.

This former "Queen of the Lakes" deserves a better fate than a scrapper's torch or rotting away in this backwater. Hell, I'll take her if they don't want her. Just need about 810 feet of dock space somewhere.