Today I saw a whole fleet of stories about the Michipicoten. That name is aparenty pronounced as Mich-i-pecan.
Here's another TV station's report:
(FOX 9) - A freighter carrying taconite was taking on water in Lake Superior near Grand Portage, Minn., after colliding with something underwater Saturday morning.
The U.S. Coast Guard officials say they received a report around 7 a.m. about a bulk carrier, the 689-foot Michipicoten, taking on water about 35 miles southwest of Isle Royal in Lake Superior after it collided with something underwater.
Pumps onboard the freighter were used to remove some of the water spilling in. The U.S. Coast Guard said there are currently no signs of spillage of taconite due to the collision.
I don't think I've ever seen a more battered in ship, beaten in by the docks the ship has been tied up to over many years. Almost all of the side strakes of the hull have been beaten into the frames which support them. The old vessel is 72 years old. It's long past the time for that ship to be scrapped.
At a glance from the photos my guess is whe has a broken back now, and as soon as they get the Iron Ore unloaded, she'll likely be off to a ship breakers to become iron bits for the steel mill melt furnaces herself.
I don't understand why they were concerned that she might spill her cargo into the lake. She's carrying small rocks, ordinary taconite gravel. Rocks not unlike like some of the ones I have scattered out in my yard.
Our taconite is black, and are such dense with iron rocks that they have a heft similar to cast iron. It's a surprising dense heavy gravel, but it is gravel, simply dug from the side of a mountain.
It wouldn't be the end of the Earth if some of those rocks got dumped on the bottom of the lake.
I'm happy to read that she didn't kill anyone during her years, or spill any fuel oil into the water yesterday when she broke her back and died.
Fair warning to the owners, If after this they do try to fix her up again, I'm going to dub her as the MV Tetanus. She's got rust holding together her rust.