After the finish of the International Tugboat Race, the tugs raft together and participents come ashore in Windsor to accept awards and celebrate.

June 25, 2011

Tags:   tug tugboat International Tugboat Race Windsor Ontario JW Westcott II Joseph J Hogan

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The research vessel ASI Clipper is tied up just below the Welland Canal's Lock 1 September 17/10.

Tags:   ASI Clipper ASI Group Ltd Welland Canal St Catharines Ontario

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The tug Calusa Coast with fuel barge Delaware is downbound on the Detroit River below the Ambassador Bridge.

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The tug Carl M assists the Sandra Mary upbound on the St. Clair River at Point Edward Ontario July 31/09.

Tags:   Carl M tugboat St. Clair River Point Edward Ontario Port Huron Michigan McNally International Inc

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Spanking new and on delivery, the Chicago Fire Department's Christopher Wheatley is upbound on the Detroit River at Belle Isle.

April 15, 2011



At 90 feet long and 300 tons, the $8.5-million Chicago fireboat is the biggest thing to come out of Wheatley harbor in years. “It’s an impressive boat,” Windsor’s J.P. Cormier of Chapman Signs said Wednesday as he finished the Chicago Fire Department lettering on the sides of the red fire boat.

The vessel sports four large nozzles that look like guns and are able to deliver 14,000 gallons of water per minute. “It’s these water jets right there,” Cormier said of the boat’s wow factor. “They’re so massive.”

The vessel represents more than a year of work for Hike Metal Products Ltd. and its more than 20 workers. It’s the largest boat the Wheatley ship builder has sent out of the harbor in four or five years and is larger than a fire boat built in 2007 for Baltimore.

On Friday morning the boat will leave the harbor and could be passing up the Detroit River that afternoon. It will head through Lake St. Clair, Lake Huron and Lake Michigan before reaching Chicago Sunday night, if the weather co-operates.

The boat carries the Wheatley name in a touching coincidence that surprised fire officials in Chicago and the ship builders here. The fireboat is called the Christopher Wheatley, after a 31-year-old Chicago firefighter who died Aug. 9 in the line of duty. He was carrying equipment up a fire escape during a restaurant fire when he fell to his death.

His father Daniel Wheatley said after the Chicago Fire Department told him the city’s replacement fire boat would be commissioned in his son’s name, he asked about who was building the boat. When he looked up Hike Metal’s website and saw the location he was stunned. He travelled to Wheatley in March to see the boat and the village.

“His mother and I both agreed, he’s talking to us. He’s sending a message that he’s all right and we’ll see you another day.” Daniel said his son loved firefighting and hanging out on a pleasure boat he and his father owned.

The Christopher Wheatley is a heavy-duty fireboat designed to break up to 12 inches of ice so it can operate year-round. It can be used with scuba divers, for rescues, for firefighting with foam or water and as a pumping station to supplement the city’s firemain supply of water. It can be run with a crew of five or up to 10 when fighting a fire. It has a kitchen, washroom and crew accommodations below decks.

One of the four monitor nozzles sits on a platform that can be elevated 30 feet and the force of the spray will be enough to blast brick off the side of a building, Stanton said.

To be able to pass underneath low bridges, the boat was built so the mast comes down and it sits no more than 16 feet out of the water. It has four engines, two for the water pumps and two 1,500 horsepower propulsion engines to drive the boat. It can travel at 12 knots or at three knots through ice.

“These boats aren’t built every day,” Stanton said of the attention it has received.

Hike Metal, which started in 1963, builds on average one large vessel, such as the fire boat, and a few smaller ones a year.

The Windsor Star

Tags:   Christopher Wheatley CFD Chicago Fire Department Detroit River Windsor Ontario Belle Isle

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