USS Cleveland Transits Great Lakes Toward May 16 Commissioning

Chris Izworski, reporting from Bay City for the Great Lakes Gazette, turns to a significant warship movement this week: the USS Cleveland (LCS-31), a Freedom-class littoral combat ship, was downbound at Port Huron on Friday en route from Marinette, Wisconsin to Cleveland, Ohio. The Navy vessel, fresh from Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard, will be officially commissioned on May 16—just one week away. After that ceremony, she'll depart the Great Lakes for her homeport at Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, Florida. It's a rare and noteworthy transit for the inland seas. Meanwhile, the Port of Green Bay remains choked by high water and ice conditions that have kept the Fox River navigation channel closed for nearly a month. The tanker Algotitan from Sarnia, Ontario, sits anchored north of the channel entrance alongside the loaded vessels Edenborg and Erieborg, all three carrying Finnish wood pulp waiting for passage. The Eeborg is currently on the St. Clair River working toward that anchorage. Other cargo diversions have already occurred—the tug/tank barge Albert/Margaret and cement boats Amrize rerouted to Milwaukee last month rather than wait indefinitely. Port operators project another week before conditions allow safe downbound cargo movement. Lake levels remain well above winter datum across the system. Lake Ontario holds the highest surplus at 3.69 feet above Low Water Datum, followed by Lake Erie at 2.92 feet. Lake Michigan sits 1.81 feet above, while Superior and Huron measure 1.52 and 1.64 feet respectively. A cold front is sweeping across the upper lakes today with waves building to 4 feet on Michigan; conditions should improve by Sunday as high pressure returns. In maritime heritage news, the Great Lakes lost a pioneering voice this week. Maurice D. Smith, 87, founding director and curator of the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes at Kingston, passed away. Smith helped build one of Canada's largest maritime collections—over 3,000 artifacts, 40,000 ship plans, and 15,000 photographs—and was an early champion of Internet technology for maritime research, co-founding the MARHST-L listserv in 1994.