# This is where we are today!



## Brent H (Feb 2, 2021)

https://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=272

Is not that a cool looking light house?  Today (as in about one hour ago) it has a bunch of snow on it and ice around it - looks like Dracula would love to stay the night.  So cool to see these things up close.  The US did a bang up job of making many of their lighthouses works or art.

We are breaking out a couple tug/barg folks that are stuck in the thin ice.  Lots of fun - not a great day to use the lathe due to vibration issues, but I suppose that one that is swiss made would not have any issues - LOL

Stay safe and healthy!

Brent


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## Chicken lights (Feb 2, 2021)

Have you seen the Split Rock lighthouse? NE out of Duluth on the north shore. I think lighthouses are cool, I’ve gone to a bunch of them in North Carolina’s Outer Banks and seen a few around the Great Lakes. 
Stay safe!


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## YYCHM (Feb 2, 2021)

I don't see any ice in your picture?


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## Brent H (Feb 2, 2021)

@Chicken lights : I probably have past by it at one point in the last 27 years - we have been to Duluth only a handful of times - got some shore leave once there to check out the town - it was a Christmas adventure I believe - neat older type place.   We (Canada) has a few light houses on Superior that are in similar locations but the cash flow difference is somewhat evident.






This is Trowbridge light house in northern superior.

Back in the late 80's and early 90's we used to have programs to go out and paint these things and re-roof them with the metal roofs.  That lasted until just about 94 and then we got orders to burn many of the places to the ground.  Gut the copper , remove the lights, generators, fuel etc etc and then torch them.

They replaced them with just a piece of basically drainage pipe with a light on top - solar power, no humans.

There are a bunch of really really cool places that are remote and not really "public" so you never see them.  Some went up for sale in the early 90's and you could buy as a cottage, many didn't sell as they were so remote (couple day boat trip) so they ended up "being returned to nature"  alas....

We still paint some of them and do odd repairs but not like the early times.  All that cement on Trowbridge would have been hauled out in the form of sand, gravel, cement and mixed and poured on site - crazy amounts of work.


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## Brent H (Feb 2, 2021)

@YYCHobbyMachinist


> I don't see any ice in your picture?



Yes, that is off the web page.  I don't carry my phone or camera around very much - I saw the light house from the mess porthole and thought to pass on to you guys after I finished my hot baked pretzel....so you see, I had a choice...dash several decks to my cabin and leap out to try and get a shot....or stay and enjoy a superbly made pretzel in its prime while the light house drifted to far away.... dang pretzel won I am afraid...alas


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## Chicken lights (Feb 2, 2021)

The next time you mention the hardships of being on the ship I’m bringing up fresh baked pretzels


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## Chicken lights (Feb 2, 2021)

That’s the Split Rock lighthouse. I want those horns for the truck


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## Swharfin' (Feb 3, 2021)

Chicken lights said:


> View attachment 13108View attachment 13109View attachment 13110
> That’s the Split Rock lighthouse. I want those horns for the truck


Wouldn't you have to put the E-brake on first. Just asking


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## Chicken lights (Feb 3, 2021)

Swharfin' said:


> Wouldn't you have to put the E-brake on first. Just asking


To use the air horns? Nope 70 mph and honk away


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## Brent H (Feb 3, 2021)

@Chicken lights : Should try and set you up with our ice breaking horn - it is like 40" in diameter - you could blow the wee cars out of your path!  would not be great for fuel economy though!


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## Chicken lights (Feb 3, 2021)

Brent H said:


> @Chicken lights : Should try and set you up with our ice breaking horn - it is like 40" in diameter - you could blow the wee cars out of your path!  would not be great for fuel economy though!


Might be a risk I’m willing to take!

All kidding aside when kids do the arm pump thing, I blow the big horn one short one llllooooonnnggg. It’s an unwritten rule


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## Swharfin' (Feb 3, 2021)

I have a Clairion or a Klaxon not sure which (surplus rack) off a sour gas warning tower & no I didn't pilfer it off an active site the site was decommissioned 
it's painful if your not far enough away I'll send it to you. It's obviously a use at your own risk deal.    inbox your info if interested  I'm sure it'll make the kids do the baby wiggle


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## Hacker (Feb 4, 2021)

Brent H said:


> View attachment 13105
> 
> https://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=272
> 
> ...


It might leave some interesting patterns of the work piece. LOL


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## YYCHM (Feb 4, 2021)

Chicken lights said:


> Might be a risk I’m willing to take!
> 
> All kidding aside when kids do the arm pump thing, I blow the big horn one short one llllooooonnnggg. It’s an unwritten rule



David, did you take @Swharfin' up on his Clairion/Klaxon offer?


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## Chicken lights (Feb 4, 2021)

YYCHobbyMachinist said:


> David, did you take @Swharfin' up on his Clairion/Klaxon offer?


Eummm......my office staff is working with his office staff to close the deal. I believe they’ve accepted terms and are now working on a shipping quote 

I’m in no hurry but I think it would be neat to put that back to work again


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## Swharfin' (Feb 5, 2021)

It's an Air Chime a couple of #'s on it 30109  Ser.# 18644 appx. 16" oal 7' at trumpet end 6' at diaphragm 1/2' npt inlet and a nasty attitude.
Took awhile to locate, my inventory team gets distracted easily when in the several warehouses. Shipping is checking options hopefully on it's way today.


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## Brent H (Feb 7, 2021)

Makin’ tracks!


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## YYCHM (Feb 7, 2021)

What manner of lake traffic would be using that track?


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## Brent H (Feb 7, 2021)

The back view:





A cement barge with a very underpowered tug pushing it - yes, silly at the best of times but this is what puts food on the table - LOL


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## Swharfin' (Feb 7, 2021)

All that mileage and no trolling rod? 
wasted opportunity
ice is no excuse lol   seriously Thanks for sharing


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## Brent H (Feb 7, 2021)

Some drone footage of us cutting the grass:


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## Chicken lights (Feb 7, 2021)

Brent H said:


> Some drone footage of us cutting the grass:


I’m guessing getting stuck is not good...?

Pretty cool tho!


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## YYCHM (Feb 7, 2021)

Brent H said:


> A cement barge with a very underpowered tug pushing it



When you say a cement barge do you mean a barge carrying cement or a barge made out of cement and how the heck do they steer that thing if they are pushing it?

Is the drone a part of the ships kit?

Craig


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## Brent H (Feb 7, 2021)

LOL - the drone is some dude in Sarnia area - not sure who?  The Cement barge is carrying the powder to be bagged and tagged at your outlet store....The tug is interesting.....


So they take an old Laker and basically neuter it (cut off the engine room), next they make a pocket that a barge can slip into - the pocket typically has connection points that the tug can pin itself to.  Then the tug becomes the "engine room"  Some tugs are just chained into the pocket.

Drones - we can't fly them without a pilots license and  weeks of training etc etc  - it is crazy -   could have 5 or six beer convo about some of the silly regs we need to follow...but hey, joe public has an amazing drone - may post some of his pics if interested...


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## David_R8 (Feb 7, 2021)

Cool footage Brent, how many knots was she running?


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## Brent H (Feb 8, 2021)

We were booking it through the slush at about 10 knots - there are speed limits in the river, not sure if they apply to the "ice months".  Engines just really clicking - no real heavy load causing us some issues with retaining heat.  The weather is -18 tonight so hopefully things get a bit more solid but no too solid!


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## trlvn (Feb 8, 2021)

Brent H said:


> We were booking it through the slush at about 10 knots - there are speed limits in the river, not sure if they apply to the "ice months".  Engines just really clicking - no real heavy load causing us some issues with retaining heat.  The weather is -18 tonight so hopefully things get a bit more solid but no too solid!


In that kind of temperature, do you have to keep running up and down the river to keep it open?  It must start to thicken up pretty quickly?

Between us and the Yanks, how do they coordinate who is going to break ice where?

Craig
(And I could watch that drone footage for ages.  Excellent camera work!)


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## Brent H (Feb 8, 2021)

Hey Craig, 

So we are running to try and break up a "track" that hopefully allows the big lakers and tug/barges to follow through and also allow the river current to flush the ice out to the lake (St Clair or Erie).  Last week Huron dumped a load of the broken up ice into the river and clogged things up.  The river system has a few tight "S" bends and once they get clogged the larger vessels can't make the turns.  The ice tends to hold them, we go in and bust out the track and also shave off the corners so they can turn.

Typically the ice office (yep, they have one) will appoint the most experienced ship with the task of making the calls for traffic.  As ships enter into the river system they are sort of ranked as to their ice capabilities - some are utter crap and should not be operating but they see us out there and decide to go for it - LOL.  Our Captain right now is the river boss so to speak.  So he will set up the order for transits and we escort the ships - Typically we will escort the ships through the more difficult areas of the river and then pass the escort to the Americans and then back to our other ship (Griffon) and then the vessel is out into the Lake Erie.  When Erie freezes up the Griffon will escort from basically Peele Passage to Nanticoke or across the lake if required and we will do the runs from Sarnia to Peele.  The US boats are smaller and have a bubbler system to help them break the ice.  Most of them have gone through a massive vessel life extension - they work hard but are a bit small - a lot of their captains are inexperienced (2 year assignments) so they sometimes struggle a bit.  One year they had guys driving that transferred from Hawaii  - lots of ice there - LOL


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## historicalarms (Feb 8, 2021)

Chicken lights said:


> To use the air horns? Nope 70 mph and honk away



    I have two "locomotive horn on a truck" stories of two separate guys that I worked with, one funny as hell the other not so much. 
   One fellow I worked with bought a locomotive horn for his Fruitliner and mounted it in front of the boggies just inside the frame...he was a real dick...one evening I was following him thru a small AB. town we delivered to. There was a young lady walking on the sidewalk just in front of him. When he got right up beside her he cut loose with that horn. She was only 4 ft to the side. I seen her jump sideways 6 ft and instantly grab her ears in pain. I had to stop to see if I could assist her but there was already a woman from a house out to her and she was writing down truck names as fast as she could ( rightfully so in this case). The end result was that the clown was charged with assault & bodily harm (permanent hearing damage) but the damn lawyers got it reduced to a "noise bylaw infraction"...$75.00 fine.

    The second one is funny, budie of mine had a horn installed on his gravel truck, one early morning we were sitting on loaded on a hiway waiting for the paving crew to set the paver up...it was sitting on a RR crossing and 8 men all busily concentrating on doing the set up. Stan says watch this and blew that locomotive horn...man you want to see 8 guys all of a sudden $hit themselves simultaneously....we almost got sent home by the superintendent over that one .

   Dave, when you do hook that horn up, both guys I know said you have to run a full 1/2" line from a main manifold to get enough air volume. The regular 3/8 lines wont cut it.

     I have a locomotive horn in my shop as a burglar alarm that I can hear from the house. it is hooked to a air line valve with a rope that can be attached to any door...if a door is opened when that thing is attached I can guarantee you that nobody is going to remain in that shop long enough to carry a socket out the door.


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## YYCHM (Feb 8, 2021)

Brent H said:


> ...but hey, joe public has an amazing drone - may post some of his pics if interested...



Post away.


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## Chicken lights (Feb 8, 2021)

The river is all open water south of the bridge @Brent H


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## Brent H (Feb 9, 2021)

@Chicken lights : that’s the Sarnia crossing - we are down at the Ambassador Bridge - Windsor last night for water:




The “other ship” Griffon grabbing some fuel:





We will fuel next week - probably take on about 350000 litres.  Too bad I don’t get Petro Points - LOL

Off into the ice:


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## Chicken lights (Feb 9, 2021)

Brent H said:


> @Chicken lights : that’s the Sarnia crossing - we are down at the Ambassador Bridge - Windsor last night for water:
> View attachment 13236
> The “other ship” Griffon grabbing some fuel:
> 
> ...


You’re making me want to buy a boat and see if I can keep it from capsizing to see more of the waterways I drive by


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## Swharfin' (Feb 9, 2021)

YYCHobbyMachinist said:


> When you say a cement barge do you mean a barge carrying cement or a barge made out of cement and how the heck do they steer that thing if they are pushing it?
> 
> Is the drone a part of the ships kit?
> 
> Craig


Thinking early Liberty ship are you?


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## Brent H (May 17, 2021)

So, back up in the big pond getting closer to Thunder Bay.  We are in close to Nipigon Bay doing buoy checks and dropping off the weather station buoy for Slate Island.
Nice sun set





Some pictures of the local scenery:









Beautiful place when the lake is calm.


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## YYCHM (May 17, 2021)

Amazing pictures Brent.  Please keep them coming...


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