Elmer Engman, our Duluth correspondent, reports that the AMERICAN CENTURY entered Duluth on May 30th to pick up a cargo of taconite, but not in the usual way.

This is something you don’t see every day, but she slowly backed next to the AMERICAN INTEGRITY which was docked at the Ash Grove cement dock in Duluth.

The AMERICAN INTEGRITY has an oil leak at the stern and there is an oil boom across the stern.

The AMERICAN INTEGRITY is going to off load her cargo into the AMERICAN CENTURY. The next step will be to ballast the bow down to expose the stern. 

The shipyard crew from Fraser Shipyard hopefully can repair the leak. The AMERICAN INTEGRITY is too large for the drydock at the shipyard.

Photos by Elmer Enger

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The M/V AMERICAN CENTURY was built by Bay Shipbuilding Corp. at Sturgeon Bay, Wis., in 1981 and was formerly known as the COLMBIA STAR. Columbia referred to the brig Columbia that carried the first cargo of iron ore through the St. Mary’s Falls Canal in 1855. Star referred to the star that Oglebay Norton vessels formerly carried on their smoke stacks. Bought by the American Steamship Company in 2006 and renamed AMERICAN CENTURY.

The M/V AMERICAN INTEGRITY was built by Bay Shipbuilding Corp. at Sturgeon Bay, Wis., in 1978 as the LEWIS WILSON FOY.  Renamed OGLEBAY NORTON in 1991 after the Oglebay Norton Company.  Bought by her current owner American Steamship Company in 2006 and renamed AMERICAN INTEGRITY.

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Elmer Engman is a long time resident of the Duluth area. He started scuba diving in 1968, because of an interest in maritime history, and wrote the first dive guide for the area called, Shipwreck Guide to the Western Half of Lake Superior. He is a past board member of the SS Meteor Maritime Museum and the Lake Superior Marine Museum Association. He is also the founder of the Maritime history program called “Gales of November”. This will be the 38th of the program held on the second weekend in November.