Freighter Operations out of Port Holland

[zgrinder on Fin Warrior]

After the other night working to get in around a cargo ship, I worked the internet and came up with a site, marinetraffic.com, that at a no-cost registration will allow tracking of 5 vessels.  Just so happens there are 5 cargo ships that operate out of port Holland: Calumet, Cuyahoga, Great Republic, Manitowoc and Saginaw.  The site provides for setting up a fleet of 5 vessels to track.  Unfortunately, the settings cannot be saved so whatever information that you prefer to view has to be reset each time.  Not a big deal.  My plan is to check this site for inbound/outbound traffic before piloting out for the night bite.  The most active cargo operations are by the Undaunted/Pere Marquette 41 tug/barge platform (see https://boatnerd.com/pictures/fleet/peremarquette41.htm for the amazing story of the history of the two vessels).  We saw this cargo operation coming out of the harbor while fishing on the 3rd moving what I believe was scrap iron from Padnos Co.  I will be tracking this operation separately.  The tug/barge is much smaller, not taking up the entire channel and is in and out much faster.  Much easier to maneuver around.  Hope this is helpful.

Fin Warrior

[georgeb]

a nice thing about freighters is they do not try to hide at night.  They are as lit up as they can be. 

With their steady speed they will sneak up on ya real quick. 

The way to know for sure you have annoyed one is when they hit you with their bow light.  Night turns to day reel quick when they turn on that bow spot and if you are really in their way you get the horn.  I have even heard a tug captain go off on a tri-hull that was jigging in Muskegon channel and waited to long to pull their anchor.  "I can tell I'm in Muskegon, the assholes are here"