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The S.S. Willis B. Boyer launched in 1911.
The ship was the biggest, the most technically advanced
and had the largest tonnage capacity of all the lake freighters.
The ship is 617 feet long (more than two football fields
laid end to end), 64 feet wide, and has a bulk cargo capacity
of 15,000 tons - the ship itself weighs nearly 10,000
tons.
When launched, the ship was coal-fired and the crew size
was 39. In later years the boat was converted to fuel
oil, which does not have to be shoveled, and the crew
declined to about 28.
The Boyer served from 1911 through the end of the 1980
shipping season, when she was among several ships retired.
She was the largest of them all in 1911. By 1980, she
was among the smallest in the American fleet! The largest
Great Lakes freighter is 1,017 feet long - 400 feet longer
than the Boyer.
Owners sought ways to recover some of the value of their
retired ships. A sister of the Boyer was scrapped and
became nearly “10,000 tons of razor blades.”
The S.S. Willis B. Boyer was saved from that fate by
Toledo-A-Float, Inc., a non-profit organization which
brought the ship to Toledo's International Park, where
she has been permanently docked as a museum ship since
1987. The friends and volunteers of the S.S. Willis B.
Boyer provide several services to Toledo and the regional
community. Among them:
- Preserving the ship for historical reasons.
- Educational center, servicing schools from a 25-county
area.
- Tourist attraction, drawing thousands of visitors
to the area annually.
- As a practice site to local fire departments, the
Coast Guard, and company fire brigades.
Bills are paid by charging admission, accepting donations
(there is a donation box in the engine room), selling
souvenirs and gift items, various fundraising events,
and by renting portions of the ship or the entire ship
for parties, meetings, and receptions.
If you have a family event coming up, this is a great
place to celebrate. If you are a member of a non-profit
group looking for an ideal fundraising site, the S.S.
Willis B. Boyer is ideal for such events.
When the Boyer was first launched it was christened the
S.S. Colonel James Schoonmaker in honor of the president
of the Shenengo Furnace Company, the original owners.
In later years, the ship became part of the Cleveland
cliffs Shipping Co. fleet.
The S.S. Willis B. Boyer is permanently docked at International
Park - which is significant. International Park was originally
the primary coal handling facility of the Port of Toledo.
It was in relation to the to Port of Toledo prior to the
port's relocation and expansion in Maumee Bay.
Following its launching, the S.S. Willis B. Boyer made
its first commercial trip from what is now International
Park, carrying coal to Sheboygan, WI. So, she has come
home again.
Lake freighters have been the most efficient means of
moving large quantities of various commodities since early
in the 19th century. Originally, lumber, quarried stone,
sand, salt, grains and building materials and furnishings
were frequent cargos.
Today, these great ships, some of them over 1,000 feet
long, carry corn, wheat, flax, and other farm products,
plus fertilizer, salt, sand, coal and iron ore to other
U.S. and Canadian ports. Many cargoes are transferred
to ocean going ships at the Port of Montreal, for instance,
and are delivered all over the world.
The efficiencies achieved through Great Lakes Shipping
has resulted in enabling farmers in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois
and Michigan to market their produces less expensively
than in many other parts of the world, helping to make
them among the most prosperous farmers in the world.
Many of Ohio's well known ‘North Coast’ vacation
and tourist communities began as busy Great Lakes ports
— Port Clinton, Sandusky, Milan, etc.
While the S. S. Willis B. Boyer was in service, it visited
all five of the Great Lakes. The ship got as far east
as Montreal, where the water becomes ‘brackish’
that is, where fresh water and salt water combine, but
has never been in salt water.
Great Lakes Ships are fresh or ‘sweet’ water
boats. The water intake systems do not have desalinization
systems, so they cannot function in salt water without
modification. One result, is that the Boyer’s hull,
never exposed to corrosive salt water, is sound and will
be for many years to come.
Preventive maintenance is a major concern of the shipping
companies, since the overhead involved in a break down
during the shipping season is extremely expensive. Most
ships are taken into dry dock for total inspection, repair
and repainting of the hull every five years. Preventive
maintenance programs, while constant, are conducted in
earnest when the ships are laid up during the winter time.
The Great Lakes shipping season lasts eight to ten months.
The length of the season varies with the weather. When
the Great Lakes freeze over, usually from January to March,
the ships ‘lay up’ in various port cities. During
that time, maintenance and repair programs are conducted,
and the ships are re-stocked with everything from paper
products and food staples to light bulbs and paint.
The financial impact on the City of Toledo is estimated
at just over $1 million per ship when a company chooses
to winter in Toledo.
Passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA),
signed by President Clinton in 1994, has given a boost
to shipping and related business and industries. For instance,
the ship yards and ship repair firms in Toledo, always
busy servicing ships during winter lay up, dealt almost
exclusively with U.S. flag ships except during emergencies,
and were relatively slow in business terms from April
through November. Today, without the tariff between the
U.S. & Canada, many Canadian ships are using Toledo
facilities for repairs and jobs are at an all time high
in those firms.
Businesses which benefit from the Great Lakes shipping
industry include: ship yards and repair facilities, railway
companies, coal and iron mining companies in Appalachia,
Minnesota and Ontario, Canada, farmers and grain handling
companies, fuel oil producers, manufacturers of paints
and lubricants, vendors of produce, appliances, paper
products and insurance underwriters.
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