The M/V Manitoulin received a first class welcome and champagne toast during a special ceremony at the Government Dock at Sarnia Harbour Friday.
The 664 ft Lower Lakes Towing Ltd. vessel, with a maximum seaway capacity of 27,550 tons, is the first new river class self-unloader to be introduced into Great Lakes service in over 40 years.
Rand Logistics VP of Technical Services Eric McKenzie says they are really excited about the new addition to their fleet.
"What you see here is the forebody of the ship, which is completely new, constructed in China," he says. "The afterbody, which is the accommodation and engine room, is an ex-Danish tanker built in 1995. Tankers run a normal life of about 15 years. But, for us it's fairly new."
McKenzie says Sarnia residents should see the new vessel, which transports bulk cargo to Canadian and U.S. Great Lakes ports, quite a bit navigating the St. Clair River.
"Most of the cargos it will be carrying will be grain, aggregate, we carry a lot of aggregate salt, coal, anything that we can move in 25 thousand ton lots," he says. "It carries a lot of salt out of Goderich, a lot of aggregate out of the Michigan Peninsula, we dump aggregate down in the Windsor area for our customers. So, it will traverse this area quite a bit. Likely more Lake Huron, Lake Michigan and Lake Erie.
The new addition increases the fleet size of Rand subsidiary Lower Lakes Towing to 16, including 10 Canadian flagged and six U.S. flagged vessels.
"This is a Great Lakes ship, so its construction is about 50% the strength of an ocean going ship," says McKenzie. "We had to be very careful in bringing it across the ocean. We only got a one trip exemption. So we took special caution and loaded some solid ballast to reduce the stresses on it."
McKenzie says it's an exciting time for the Canadian shipping industry, which is in a mode of fleet renewal.
"Our competitors are currently building ships to replace older ships and some of our competitors have full sized ships that are now operating in Canada that are brand new," he says.
