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Ottawa (tug)

Tugboat that sank in Lake Superior

Field	Value
section1	{{Infobox ship/image
image	Ottawa ship.jpeg
image_caption	The Ottawa
section2	{{Infobox ship/career
registry	[[Image:Flag of the United States.svg	20px]] United States
name	Ottawa
owner	Reid Wrecking Company, of Sarnia, Ontario (last owners)
builder	Built in 1881 at Chicago
laid_down	November 13, 1909
launched	1881
fate	Burned and sank 29 November 1909
notes	*Wreck located between Basswood Island and the Bayfield Peninsula
section3	{{Infobox ship/characteristics
type	Tugboat
tonnage	610.8 gross tons
length	151 ft
beam	28 feet
hold_depth	13 feet
power	600 horsepower engine
notes	Originally named the Boscobel, renamed Ottawa when sold.
section4	{{Infobox NRHP
embed	yes
name	Ottawa (Tug) Shipwreck Site
coordinates
location	Russell, Wisconsin
nearest_city	Red Cliff, Wisconsin
added	June 8, 1992
refnum	92000594
mpsub	Great Lakes Shipwreck Sites of Wisconsin MPS

Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1992

The Ottawa was a tugboat that sank in Lake Superior off the coast of Red Cliff in Russell, Bayfield County, Wisconsin. The wreckage site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

History

Ottawa, originally named Boscobel, was built in Chicago, Illinois. It was the largest tug ever built in Chicago at the time and remained the largest and most powerful tug on the Great Lakes until its sinking in 1909.

Originally the boat was used for rafting logs on Lake Michigan, but in 1901 was bought (and renamed) by the Reid Wrecking Company, based in Sarnia, Ontario.

On November 13, 1909, a steamboat passing the Apostle Islands became stranded on a shoal two miles off of Outer Island during a storm. The ship's first mate and other members of the crew launched the lifeboat and went to land in order to get help. Four vessels tried for a week to aid the steamboat. Eventually, three more vessels, including Ottawa, were dispatched to the scene. On November 29, they were finally able to free the steamboat. That evening, the Ottawas crew ate dinner and retired to bed. Less than 30 minutes later, they were woken by a fire that was already out of control. Ottawa was pushed away from the steamboat that they had earlier rescued by the other vessels in efforts to stop the spread of fire and another tugboat was sent to help Ottawa. Despite the efforts, Ottawa burned to the waterline and sank. All crew members were saved.

The cause of the fire remains unknown. Theories include that the fire was a result of spontaneous combustion in the ship's coal bunkers, which contained 130 tons of fuel.

References

"Ottawa (Tug) Shipwreck Site". Landmark Hunter.com.
"Service History". Wisconsin Shipwrecks.org.
Keller, James M.. (1984). "The Unholy Apostles".
"Final Voyage page 1". Wisconsin Shipwrecks.org.
"Final Voyage page 2". Wisconsin Shipwrecks.org.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1881-ships ships-built-in-chicago maritime-incidents-in-1909 shipwrecks-of-lake-superior shipwrecks-on-the-national-register-of-historic-places-in-wisconsin shipwrecks-of-the-wisconsin-coast national-register-of-historic-places-in-bayfield-county,-wisconsin tugboats-on-the-great-lakes

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