MUSKEGON is sending off the USS Silversides today before the World War II submarine leaves for her first full dry dock preservation in more than 50 years. The work ahead is not cosmetic. Hull crews will strip zebra and quagga mussels from the steel, inspect the structure, make steel repairs, and apply a new generation of protective coatings. Officials say the project buys the vessel another 25 to 30 years. A community send-off is scheduled to walk visitors through what the work involves and what comes next.
Silversides has been a Muskegon fixture long enough that most locals have stopped thinking of her as a vessel that can move. She is about to remind them. A submarine leaving a freshwater slip under tow is not a sight the lakes offer often, and this one heads to the yard carrying 50 years of earned grime and the promise of five decades more on the other side.
Monroe collected three arrivals today: Florence Spirit and Undaunted/Pere Marquette 41 came into the port docks, and Manitowoc arrived with limestone for DTE.
At Toledo, Exeborg came into Midwest Terminals, H. Lee White brought ore to Torco at Ironville, and Clyde S. VanEnkevort/Erie Trader delivered ore to Cliffs at Ironville. Algoma Bear shifted to Mondelez. Departing Toledo were H. Lee White bound for Detroit and Albert/Margaret bound for Green Bay, closing out the tug-barge's recent run in the area.
Back in Marblehead, Dorothy Ann/Pathfinder returned to Amrize to load limestone, a second call at that berth this week.
Lake Erie sits at 3.26 feet above Low Water Datum at Cleveland, the highest reading among the lower lakes this morning. Lake Ontario leads all five at 3.82 feet above datum at Rochester. Lake Michigan reads 2.40 feet at Chicago and Lake Huron 2.18 feet at Harbor Beach. Lake Superior holds at 1.86 feet at the Soo. The Erie reading gives loaded vessels a comfortable margin, but draft-sensitive runs in Lake Superior remain the tightest on the system.
A cold front is dropping south across Lake Michigan today into tonight; light south winds will back north to northeast behind it, and patchy dense fog is possible in places. On Lake Huron, a 29.70-inch low and trailing front bring the chance of rain showers and isolated thunderstorms before high pressure rebuilds. Lake Erie is quieter this morning under 30.10-inch high pressure, but that front arrives tonight into Friday. Waves are running around 1 to 2 feet across the lower lakes.
Captain Steve Hughes of Duluth spent three decades working up to one of the more unusual distinctions in freshwater sailing: pilot of the M/V Paul R. Tregurtha, the longest vessel operating on the Great Lakes. Hughes grew up in Marquette watching ore boats work the docks while his father, a geography professor at Northern Michigan University, pointed out the freighters. He retires in December. "The distinction is more symbolic than operational," Hughes said, which is exactly the kind of thing a man says when he has already earned the thing he is trying to downplay.