NavList:

"When I rode Beth Steel Lakers in the 70's" said Dave Walden.

I was a deckhand on the Robert Hobson in the early 60's. I traveled lakes Michigan, Superior, Huron and Erie. We were often, for short periods, out of the sight of land but the feeling was more of running around the neighborhood. The radar was used like you would use a cars headlights at night. It allowed you to orient yourself in relation to known places. If you think in terms of a city delivery truck on a larger scale you will have some sense of what the ship did. As Frank Reed has suggested collision was a greater concern. At all times there was a Mate, Wheelsman and Watchman keeping a visual lookout. Coal from Toledo, iron ore from Taconite Harbor on Superior and limestone from (I don't remember)were the main cargo. Like any town the lakes had their good and bad neighborhoods. The Upper Peninsula was as gentle as South Chicago was rough. A city delivery truck does fit my memory of the time.
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