The Canallers

Before the St. Lawrence Seaway opened, a type of ship, long familiar on the St. Lawrence River and in the Great Lakes was known as the "Canaller" and was the result of the difficult geographical features of the St. Lawrence River and the limitations of the canals built to overcome these difficulties. Canallers were divided into three main categories; bulk, package and special freighters.

The water route from the lakehead to the open sea is divided into three main parts; open water, navigation on the lakes themselves, river and canal navigation on the upper St. Lawrence River between Kingston and Montreal, and almost unrestricted navigation on the lower St. Lawrence and the Gulf. The upper St. Lawrence section is, of course, the portion most closely associated with the canaller and the part which has restricted free navigation

Although there were considerable improvements to the canals over the years, they still imposed many restrictions on design, and the "Canaller" was the result of the compromises made by these restrictions and the cargo-carrying requirements.

The canal locks on the three main sections of the St. Lawrence Canals varied slightly in dimensions, those of the Soulanges section being a little wider and longer than the Lachine and Cornwall - Lachine and Williamsburg sections. The controlling lock of the whole system, as far as ship dimensions are concerned, was No. 17 at Cornwall.

This lock was nominally 45 ft wide at the waterline but upon its completion the masonry walls moved and the breadth at the bottom of the lock is was only 43 ft 8 in. At a point about 4 ft above the lock bottom corresponding to the upper turn of the bilge of the canallers, the width was 44 ft.

The maximum breadth of canallers was therefore strictly controlled by this lock and is generally 43 ft 7 in. extreme at the bilge.

The maximum over-all length was also fixed. The deck outline was arranged to give a reasonable clearance for the swing of the gates. The normal depth over the sills restricted the draft to 14 ft and most canallers are designed to operate at this draft when canalling.

Pictures of some typical Canallers from the book "Ten Tales of the Great Lakes" by "Skip" Gillham

EASTCLIFFE HALL was lost in 1970 (Dan McCormick Photo)

FRANQUELIN was built for Q&O (George Ayoub Photo)

PRINCE UNGAVA upbound in the Welland Canal (George Ayoub Photo)

JEAN TALON in the Iroquois Lock (George Ayoub Photo)

MONDOC was lost in the Caribbean during the war. SG

OAKTON lost in the St. Lawrence during the war. (Earl D. Simzer Photo)

DONALD STEWART was also lost in the St. Lawrence while serving in the war effort. (Earl D. Simzer Photo)

DRUMAHOE (Earl D. Simzer Photo)

Q&O's NEW YORK NEWS shown in wartime grey. SG

Wintering at Muir Bros in Port Dalhousie

At Port Dalhousie

Hull Form

As stated previously, the main dimensions of a canaller are rigidly controlled by the limiting lock dimensions. To obtain the maximum deadweight the lines, of course, must be made as full as possible, the limiting factor being the maximum block coefficient which can be used while maintaining sufficient directional stability. Speed is not normally a major consideration for a canal vessel as the advantages of a fast ship would be largely nullified by delays in the locks. In short-voyage ships of this type the ratio of actual running time to voyage time is low compared with seagoing vessels.

The limiting block coefficient has proved to be about 0.88, above which the ship tends to become directionally unstable and difficult to control in restricted waters and in addition, in single-screw ships, the full lines aft render it difficult to obtain adequate water flow to the propeller.

In many cases, cruiser sterns have been used with advantage in both single- and twin-screw ships, the stern of one of, the Franquelin is an example.

Package freighters, designed with less emphasis on deadweight and more on speed, are normally finer ships and are generally built with a block coeflicient of about 0.80.
The hull depth is mainly controlled by the cubic capacity required and varies, therefore, in the various types of canaller. In the bulk vessel the depth is arranged to give sufficient cubic capacity for a full deadweight of grain cargo and is usually based on the stowage rate for oats, the lightest of the grains. Similarly the depth of the package freighter is governed by the cargo requirements and the introduction of a 'tween deck in this type. The deckline generally is without sheer, except for the rise at the ends due to camber.

The Bulk Canaller Cargoes

Ever since the early agricultural development of the prairie provinces, grain has been the largest single commodity in the eastbound traffic and as a bulk cargo has been the mainstay of the canal traffic even as far back as 1800. The wheat cargoes originate mainly in Fort William-Port Arthur and are shipped via the Sault Ste. Marie and Welland canals to elevators at ports on Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, such as Port Colborne and Prescott, in large Upper Lake freighters carrying 500,000 bu and up. At these elevators the grain is transhipped to canallers for carriage to Montreal where it is again transhipped to ocean-going vessels for overseas points. Before 1930 all transhipments from Upper Lake vessels had to be made at Lake Erie ports but the opening of the Welland canal in that year enabled the Upper Lakers to continue to Prescott.

The heavy eastbound grain traffic is now partially balanced by a relatively new westbound cargo. This is the Labrador iron ore which is being shipped largely by ocean-going vessels from the ore port at Seven Islands to Contrecoeur, Que., whence it is being carried by canaller to Hamilton and Lake Erie ports.
Imported special type ores for the U.S. steel industries are also transported via the canals, having been discharged from ocean-going vessels at Sorel and Montreal.
Before the Labrador iron ore traffic development in the postwar period the bulk traffic through the canals was almost entirely eastbound giving rise to an uneconomical situation when ships had to return west in ballast.

The bulk cargo vessels which are employed in the grain and ore trades have always formed the largest part of the canal fleet..The basic features of these vessels have changed very little since 1912, the general layout being the same in most cases.
The wheelhouse, together with the deck officers' and crew's accommodation, is placed as far forward as possible and the remainder of the accommodation together with galley, mess rooms, and so on, is grouped round the casing aft.

The chief reason for the forward wheelhouse is to enable the wheelsman to see the exact position of the bow when entering locks and channels but it also has some disadvantages, especially in bad weather. In addition, the wheelsman is without a point on which to steer and this has led to the fitting of the steering pole or "spearpole," a light spar about 20 ft long hinged on the top of the stem bar and supported by wire stays. The spearpole can be seen in several of the illustrations.
The inconvenient division of the accommodation into two separate islands, has been eliminated in some of the more recent canallers which have been built with all accommodation aft and with a sunk forecastle. This results in more compact living quarters and allows more space for the forward deck machinery. This type is conned into the locks by a man stationed forward.

Many of the older vessels have an additional deckhouse on the poop deck aft. The need for this house arose as a result of a dispute in 1946 between the crews and the operators, when a three-watch crew replaced the two-watch system which had been used up to that time. In some vessels it was possible to accommodate the additional crew in the existing accommodation spaces but many others required the extra house.

Mooring

The mooring and warping equipment of canallers is specially arranged for maneuvering the vessel through the canal locks and a description of the method of locking will indicate the purpose of the equipment.

As a canaller approaches a lock the speed is reduced and the ship centered on the lock. As the clearance in many ships is only a few inches this must be done very carefully and a good deal of experience is required. As soon as the bow is into the lock the displaced water has to pass through the narrow gap between the lock walls and the ship, so that much more power is required and in fact most ships need "full ahead" in order to enter the lock.

When the ship is partially into the lock, wires are laid out forward from the mooring winches to bollards on the lock wall and the vessel is slowly warped forward and kept central in the lock. At the same time a wire is laid aft from the forecastle snubbing winch through a wire stopper or compressor to the lock wall. This wire is paid out as the ship moves forward until the bow officer judgesthat the bow is in the right position to clear the swing of the gates. The wire is then clenched in the compressor and the ship stopped.

The warping operations require winches in pairs along the upper deck. In this case they are also used for the cargo gear but in ships without derricks they are placed in pairs close together near the centerline so that one man can operate both winches, paying out on one and hauling in on the other as necessary to keep the ship centered in the lock.

The warping wires are carried out over the ship's side through a special type of roller fairlead known as the Port Colborne fairlead. This type has two rollers mounted in a ring which is free to rotate in a vertical frame mounted in the bulwark or other support. This fairlead was specially developed for use in canals where the lead angle of the wire changes sharply as the locks are drained and filled, the arrangement allowing the rollers to align themselves in any direction. The Port Colborne fairlead has superseded an older type in which a roller in a pivoted frame has only partial movement. Many of the older vessels still have this type.

To enable the crew to get ashore easily and quickly to handle the lines at the locks a pair of landing booms is fitted. These are spars hinged at the corners of the forecastle deck and supported by guy wires. When a downbound ship enters a flooded lock a deckhand swings himself ashore on the "monkey line" attached to the end of the boom and when the ship is unlocked returns in the same way.

The anchor pockets, another special feature arranged for the locks, may be seen in the illustrations. A seagoing vessel of this size would not normally have this refinement but the forward shape of a canaller is so full that anchors stowed in conventional hawsepipes would be likely to foul the lock gates and must therefore be housed entirely inside the line of the shell.

Structural Features

In general, canallers are built on a transverse framing system with, in many cases, longitudinal deck beams. The structural details and amount of riveting and welding vary greatly according to the time and place of build.

The transverse framing is mainly used because with bulk-grain cargoes, longitudinal framing leads to lodgment of grain on the frames which is difficult to remove. Several ships are framed longitudinally, being mainly those designed for specific cargoes such as newsprint and not originally intended to carry grain.

The extreme fullness of canallers leads to framing difficulties at the forward end and in many riveted ships a system of cant framing was adopted to avoid excessive bevels of the frame flanges. With welded frames the bevel difficulty does not arise but efficient welds are more difficult to obtain with the shell plating lying at steep angles to the frames and in addition the unsupported panel of shell plating becomes very wide and intermediate panel stiffeners are required if cant framing is not adopted.

The midship body of a canaller presents little difficulty in shell plating, the vertical sides and constant bilge radius allowing easy prefabrication, the ends however, have a great deal of compound curvature and good workmanship is required to produce a fair shell.
Welding on a large scale was introduced to canal vessels quite early and a completely welded vessel, the Franquelin, was completed in 1936. The ships built after the war are, of course, almost entirely welded.

Welded shells have proved to be efficient for canal work as these vessels are often in contact with locks and projecting masonry. In a riveted ship sprung rivets due to bumps are fairly common but welded hulls can be severely deformed without leakage. In many welded canallers dents in the bows just at and below the load line and at the line of the bilge are several inches deep without signs of leakage

Wide hatches are essential for the handling of the varied canal cargoes and for the easy access of elevator hoists. They are usually 28 to 30 ft wide, which is large for a ship of 43 ft 6 in. beam; the length/breadth ratio however is low and adequate longitudinal strength can be obtained without the deck platingbeing too thick.Canallers are normally built without hold pillars the deck being supported by a system of web frames and cantilever brackets from the web frames and the transverse bulkheads. The deck girders and hatch-side coamings are frequently made continuous throughout the well deck with shallow girders below deck.

These ships had solid floors on every third frame with intercostal bulb angle fore and afters between the floors on the bottom shell and tank top. It also will be noted that the hatch coamings consist of 12-in.-bulb angles. These have now been replaced byconventional coamings 24 in. high to comply with the amended load line regulations.

Conduit Bilge

The walls of the canal locks are built with a slight slope and the portion of the ship most likely to come into contact with the wall is that at and just above, the upper turn of the bilge. The double-bottom height is normally kept to the minimum allowed by classification rules so that the double bottom, even if extended to the shell without a sloped margin, would not protect the vulnerable part of the shell. The "conduit bilge" arrangement, a patented system which was introduced in the Buckeye State in 1929 for service in the New York State Barge Canal, provides this protection and at the same time provides additional ballast capacity without removing useful cargo space. It also results in a much cleaner arrangement in the bilge, without brackets to interfere with the unloading of grain cargoes. The shorter span between the deck and the conduit top results in a shallower frame and a much stiffer side panel.

In its original form the conduit bilge was part of a form of construction specifically designed for the carriage of grain, sugar, and the like. The upper corners of the hold space, which are normally void when a bulk cargo is carried, were removed and the shell and deck beveled off at an angle of 45 deg. This effected a reduction of steel weight due to a smaller sectional area and, in combination with the conduit bilge, further reduced size of side framing.

In the early 1930's several barges were built with this form of construction. These vessels were built as barges in an attempt to overcome economic difficulties resulting from delays in the locks and at elevators. The barges being of simple construction and unpowered were economical to build but proved uneconomical to operate. Within a few years of building they were fitted with a lowpower twin-screw Diesel installation and can now navigate the canals without tugs.The conduit bilge arrangement has been fitted, in various forms in several canallers, one of the special forms was arranged to handle the height and width of a standard roll of paper.

Ballasting

The average canal vessel, having machinery aft and very full lines forward is a difficult vessel to trim when in a light or partially loaded condition. This is further complicated by the fact that in order to obtain the maximum cubic no space except the fore peak and the conduit bilge if fitted, can be allocated as a permanent trimming tank. A near even keel trim is, of course, essential for a vessel passing through the locks and to obtain this an unusual method of ballasting is adopted. Flooding valves are provided in the tank top or, where a conduit bilge is fitted, in the side of the conduit bilge tank, allowing the holds to be flooded as required for trimming. In riveted vessels the hold divisional bulkhead is made watertight up to about 8 ft above the tank top. The effect of this large free surface is not serious as, owing to their form, canallers have adequate stability.
The tanks, double bottom, fore peak, and conduit bilge are provided with the normal pumping arrangements.

Some canallers at deep load, particularly when down to the 16-ft 6-in. coasting or lake draft tend to trim by the head. This is due partially to the shift aft of LCB as the very full stern becomes immersed and partially due to the fact that the LCG of the cargo space is so far forward. This is particularly so in steam-powered canallers which usually have longer machinery spaces than Diesel-powered vessels. As a result many steam vessels have a raised quarter deck enabling the full deadweight to be carried while maintaining even keel trim.

Steering

A canal vessel spends most of its life in the narrow and restricted waters of rivers and canals and its steering qualities are therefore of considerable importance. The hull form of canallers is, of course, not good from this point of view. Large rudders are therefore necessary but somewhat difficult to achieve as the swing of the lock gates makes it impracticable to have the rudder extending beyond the end of the vessel. In some canallers this problem is partially overcome by using higher powered motors on the steering gear than normally would be necessary, thereby increasing the rudder speed.

A number of canallers have been built with twin screws and twin rudders which produce a marked improvement in the steering characteristics. This improvement is expensive and was fitted in a relatively small number of canallers.

The majority of the older vessels were equipped with steam steering gear. The engine was fitted in the steering-gear compartment aft and controlled from the bridge by a shaft running below the upper deck or by a wire transmission running in sheaves.
There has been some discussion about the fitting of activated rudders but so far no canallers have been so equipped.

The Turret Vessels

One of the unconventional types which appeared in the lakes and canals in the early 1900's was the Turret vessel. Six of these vessels, which were built by William Doxford and Sons in England about 1894, were originally brought to Canada to carry coal from the Maritimes to Montreal. When the contract expired the vessels were operated through the canals to the Upper Lakes as bulk freighters.

They have an unusual midship shape. The object of the turret form was to reduce the gross tonnage by taking advantage of the breadth clause in the old rules. This form enabled the vessels to carry a full deadweight of bulk cargoes with a much lower gross tonnage than conventional ships of the same dimensions, thereby gaining advantages in the payment of port dues, etc. The rounded deck edge was gradually eased out to normal form at the ends, which, by the way, are much finer than in the true canaller.The last of these vessels, the Turret Cape was converted to a tow barge but in the early part of the last war was refitted and a Diesel engine installed. The ship was used during the war in the West Indies bauxite trade and is still in existence, now 60 years old, as the Walter Inkster, owned by Colonial Steamships Limited.

Package Freighters

The package freighter, while outwardly similar to the bulk vessel, differs in having a 'tween deck and shell doors. The lower deck, of course, allows much better stowage of diversified cargo and the shell doors allow loading by fork-lift truck or other mechanical means. The older package freighters had a shaft-and-pulley arrangement fitted for handling cargo but these have now disappeared. In these ships a continuous shaft was led from the engine room just clear of the hatches and close up to the deckhead. A friction clutch arranged at each hatch supplied power for a wire hoist for handling cargo from the hold space to the 'tween deck whence it was passed through the shell doors on skids.

A typical package freighter, the City of Windsor, which operates on a sheduled service between Hamilton and Montreal.

Most of these vessels still have cargo booms fitted although they are now rarely used, most of the freight being handled on pallets or by elevators

Tankers

The oil traffic through the canals in an average year amounts to over 1,000,000 long tons so that the canal tankers form an important part of the canal fleet. Many of Canada's refineries for imported oils are on the Island of Montreal and their products are distributed throughout Eastern Canada. Much of this distribution is by water and canal-type vessels are used.

Almost all are of the trunk-deck type with a single centerline bulkhead and 5 main cargo tanks. The molded depth to the upper deck is 18 ft, this, in conjunction with the trunk deck giving adequate cubic capacity for the deadweight available on the permissible dimensions.

It will be noted that the wheelhouse is moved aft in these tankers, its normal position being occupied by a trunked hatch to the forward hold used for the carriage of cased oils. Some vessels have the foremast stepped just aft of this hatch and have a derrick fitted for the handling of the cased cargo, others have the mast placed on the house.

The mooring-winch arrangement is modified somewhat in the tanker, all the winches being placed at the ends of the vessel. This is due to the fact that suitable leads for the wires cannot be arranged from the edge of the trunk deck.
The average capacity of this type of vessel is about 21,000 bbl with a deadweight of 2800 long tons.

Paper Carriers

The production of paper is one of Canada's major industries. Large volumes of cargo associated with this industry are moved through the canals annually and specialized types of ships have been developed to handle them.

Pulpwood Carriers

Pulpwood, the primary material of paper making is a major product of the eastern parts of the Province of Quebec and although a large proportion of this is processed in that province about half a million tons are shipped through the canals annually for processing in the Ontario and U.S. mills.

Almost all canallers are used at various times for the carriage of pulpwood but some ships have been specially designed for this cargo, such as the Irvingwood, Fig. 30. Owing to its high stowage factor a large proportion of the cargo must necessarily be carried on deck. As pulpwood is normally cut into standard lengths of 4 ft the hatch sides are arranged 4 ft 6 in. to 5 ft inside the deck edge so that the outside tier of logs can be stacked on the deck clear of the hatch. To facilitate deck cargo stowage the upper deck guard wire stanchions are arranged to hinge down onto the deck and portable wood cages are fitted over the deck machinery.

Wood Pulp Carriers

While the quantity of processed wood pulp being carried through the canals is relatively small and is usually carried in ordinary bulk canallers, it is interesting to note that a canal-sized vessel, the D. C. Everest, was designed especially for this cargo in 1902.

Newsprint Carriers

The finished paper is made up in large rolls of various standard sizes which, although relatively dense themselves, stow at a fairly high cubic rate per ton. A special type of vessel is therefore required for paper transport having a trunk about 13 ft high above the upper deck with a complete trunk deck and weathertight hatch covers. The hull depth, trunk width and height are arranged as multiples of the standard roll dimensions so that a minimum of dunnage is required.

Coal Carriers

The industrial part of Eastern Canada is without a local supply of coal and the entire supply for both domestic and industrial use is imported, a large proportion of the imports coming from the U. S. ports on Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. About one and a half million long tons annually are shipped through the canals and several vessels have been specially equipped for the trade. These vessels have not generally been built for this particular trade but have been converted from ordinary bulk vessels by the fitting of self-unloading equipment mainly of the clam bucket and belt conveyor type.

Cement Carriers

There is a considerable movement of bulk cement along the canals and in the lakes, two specially designed vessels being used for the trade. These vessels, the Cementkarrier and the Bulkarrier are generally similar in arrangements and are owned by the Canada Cement Company Limited. The Cementkarrier is a Diesel-electric vessel with electric auxiliary machinery. The cargo space is divided into 6 hopper-type holds by 4 transverse and one centerline bulkhead and to protect the cargo a double shell is fitted in way of the holds. The holds are filled by a shore pipe system led into small watertight hatches and discharge into two scraper tunnels running fore and aft.

The discharge gear consists of a Sauerman scraper, supported on an overhead trackway, situated in each tunnel and hauled along the scraper tunnels by steel wires led to two electric haulages. These drag the scrapers up an inclined path and discharge the cement into a hopper bunker which, in turn, feeds it through a sliding gate into the archimedean screw of an electrically driven highspeed Fuller Kenyon cement pump. The cement is then blown overboard through an 8-in-diameter compressed-air discharge line.

War Service

During this period many of the canal vessels were transferred to duties in the coasting and other trades. Many canallers were also requisitioned by the Ministry of Shipping and sent overseas, most of these being bulk carriers which were used for the carriage of bauxite from the West Indies to Canada.

At one period in the war the East coast and Gulf of St. Lawrence became so hazardous for these vessels that the bauxite was shipped in barges via the New York State Barge Canal to Oswego and thence by canaller to Port Alfred on the Saguenay River in Quebec for processing at Arvida.

Although few canallers were designed for open sea work they were very successful in the wartime bauxite trade and carried large quantities of this vital material.
Several canallers were operated as military supply vessels in Europe and one of these, the Waterloo, was eventually scuttled to block an entrance during a raid on an enemy port.

After the war the grain trade returned to normal and the total traffic figures again began to increase, a further impetus being given by the opening of the Labrador iron ore trade.

Ice Conditions

There are two main restrictions to ship traffic along the St. Lawrence route, the first being the lock dimensions already referred to and the second the short navigation season. The whole navigation system on the river and the lakes is, of course, subject to this same latter difficulty but in the case of the canal route the situation is aggravated by the numerous locks. The St. Lawrence canal system has a total of 22 locks between Montreal and Lake Ontario, each of which becomes a major problem when ice begins to form in the canals. Some time before the ice on the open water is thick enough to hinder navigation, slush and small pieces are carried into the locks by the movement of the vessels. This ice collects in the vee behind the gates which cannot then be fully opened into their recesses until the ice has been removed. A second difficulty is the ice which forms on the faces of the gates themselves, caused by thin streams of water flowing down as the gates are opened. This ice prevents the gates from closing watertight and must be chipped off by hand before the locks can be filled.

In the Spring when the ice is beginning to break up, pieces of ice, moved by the ships, create similar conditions so that the canal has to be fairly clear before traffic can commence.

These complications result in a shorter navigation season than on the lakes or in the Gulf. The canal system usually closes between the 5th and 10th of December and reopens about the 20th of April, leaving a season 15 to 20 days shorter than on the upper lakes. These dates vary by a few days each year according to the particular conditions which apply.

The closing of the season often develops into a race against the ice and a sudden drop in temperature may catch vessels in the canals. Typical of this condition was the end of the 1955 season which was unseasonably cold and serious ice jams occurred in the Lachine canal, with the result that a few days before the closing date over 60 ships, including many ocean-going vessels, were waiting to pass through the locks. A fortunate rise in temperature allowed the ice to be cleared and the ships passed into open water.

Machinery

The machinery fitted in the canaller over the period covering the various stages of its development has followed the general trends of marine engineering practice and falls into the following groups.

Early Steam Installations

The first steam-powered vessels, already referred to in the text, were fitted with simple expansion machinery.
During the 1870's the compound engine was introduced. This type of engine was much more economical and gave considerable impetus to the general introduction of steam propulsion in the canals. These engines generally exhausted into jet mixing condensers.

Triple Expansion Engines

After 1885 the compound engine gave place to the triple-expansion engine and surface condenser. This type is still in use in a majority of canallers today.

These engines are generally in the 600 to 900-ihp range operating at 60 to 80 rpm with steam pressures up to 180 psi.
The boilers are of the Scotch marine two-furnace type. They were originally all hand-fired coal-burning installations but several ships have been converted to forced draft for coal or oil burning.

The steam vessels are generally equipped with steam steering gear and deck machinery together with a steam-powered generator of low power, the electrical load being, in most cases, for lighting only.

The steam canallers were frequently fitted with a large rectangular shell port in the engine room, originally intended for shipping machinery parts and to augment the ventilation. The fact that this port is now mainly used by the engine-room crew for viewing the canal scenery has given rise to the expression, well known on the canals, of "The engine room pilot."

Several postwar vessels have been fitted with Skinner Unaflow engines of 750 ihp at 85 rpm. These ships are fitted with oil-fired Scotch boilers.

Early Diesel Vessels

In the early 1900's Diesel-powered vessels were beginning to make their appearance and the first canaller to be fitted with an oil engine was the Toiler built in 1911 by Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson Limited. The machinery installation was built by A. B. Diesels Motoren, Stockholm, Sweden and consisted of two 180-bhp motors driving twin screws. The engines were 2-cycle, 4-cylinder Diesels with 250 mm bore X 370 mm stroke with direct drive at 280 rpm giving a speed at deep load of 6 knots. The Toiler was the first Diesel-powered vessel to cross the Atlantic and is still in service. The Diesels were later replaced by a triple-expansion engine and the vessel converted to single screw. The ship is now known as the Mapleheath and is owned by Canada Steamship Lines.

The Toiler was soon followed by the Calgary from the same builders but had increased power, the engines being each of 260 bhp giving a speed of knots. These engines were 290 mm bore X 430 mm stroke with direct drive at 250 rpm, the auxiliaries being steam driven from an oil-fired donkey boiler.
The Calgary, was later reengined and converted to an oil tanker for lake service and became known as the Bacoi.

In 1912 the Fordonian was completed by the Clyde Shipbuilding Co. Ltd. for the Merchants Mutual Line of Montreal, one of the companies which later became the Canada Steamship Lines, and was fitted with one of the largest Diesels then in existence, a 750 bhp Carels-type engine.

The Carels engine was a 2-cycle open-type engine and that fitted in the Fordonian was a 4-cylinder model with a bore of 450 mm X 900 mm stroke, direct coupled to a single screw at 140 rpm, giving a speed of 13 knots, a considerable advance over the earlier ships.

The Fordonian later became the Georgian and in September 1930 was the first ship to navigate the Welland Canal. The ship was lost on Grand Island in Lake Superior in November 1932.

In 1913 a further Diesel development was introduced in the Tynemount built by Swan Hunter for the Montreal Transportation Company later absorbed by the Canada Steamship Lines. This vessel was fitted with a Diesel-electric installation of two Mirrlees Diesels each of 300 bhp at 400 rpm with one propulsion motor.

Later Diesel Vessels

The early trend to Diesel powering was not maintained and Diesel engines were relatively few in number until the postwar period. Notable exceptions were the Grainmotor Fig. 36 and Chicago Tribune Fig. 24, of 1929 and 1930. Both were single-screw vessels, the former being fitted with a 4-stroke 8-cylinder single-acting engine and the latter with a 2-stroke 4-cylinder engine.

The Franquelin built in 1936 represented a new trend. The cruiser-stern hull was used in association with twin medium-speed Diesels and small-diameter propellers. This ship was very successful and two postwar vessels, the Col. Robert McCormick and the Joseph Medill Paterson have been built for the same owners, the Quebec and Ontario Transportation Company, using the same arrangement but with Burmeister and Wain engines.

Most of the ships built since 1946 have been fitted with Diesel machinery, both single and twin screw, various types of engines having been used.

A typical twin-screw installation is the machinery of the Frankcliffe Hall owned by the Hall Corporation, which is fitted with two Fairbanks-Morse reversing opposed-piston engines each developing 640 bhp at 720 rpm. The Iroquois of the Canada Steamship Lines has Fairbanks-Morse nonreversing type engines of the same power and Falk reverse reduction gearing and Air-Flex clutches.
Several single-screw installations have been made such as the Belvoir, D. C. Everest, and Irvingwood. Their machinery is generally similar to that of the twin-screw ships with engines developing about 1200 bhp. These vessels all have electric auxiliaries and, of course, much higher powered generators than the steam vessels.

More Canaller Pictures