The John Sherwin was built in 1958. She is 806 feet long, 75 feet wide, and has a depth of draft of 37'06". She is a strait deck bulk freighter, and can carry 31,500 GT. The Sherwin is named for Mr. John Sherwin, who was born in 1901, and became Vice President of Pickands Mather & Company in 1942. (Interlake Steamship) She sailed on her maiden voyage on May 4th, 1958 light from Cleveland Ohio to Taconite Harbor, MN to load iron ore pellets.
The Sherwin has had a "weird" career. When I say this I mean that she was laid up in 1981, after being leghtned 93' in 73. This was the time of the 80's recession. A lot of lakers felt the torch, including the "close to sister ship" George M. Humphrey (1954 blt) several Maritimers, & Arthur B. Homer just to name a few. But the Sherwin held on. Laid up side by side with self unloader sister ship Charles M. Beeghly. To make a long story short, she is still in lay up. She has now been in lay up for 17 years! But Interlake Steamship has no intensions of scrapping her. In fact there have been plans to convert her to a Self Unloader, when-ever Interlake can get enought contracts for cargo, so they can put this ship in operation.
The Steamer John Sherwin will always remain one of my favorite lakers, with such fine lines, and great design. In fact when I go off to college, and start working on a freighter, sometime, down the road I would like to be her captain.
STORY On October 30th, 1960 the John Sherwin, with 21,000 plus tons of ore aboard, snagged rocks and sank in the St. Marys River eight miles above the Soo. Salvors got her off. I can't say just how badly she was damaged, but my uncle (now deceased) was an engineer on her at the time, and stated that her bottom was well holed for quite some length of the boat, if I remember his story correctly. The date and location facts came from Wolff's book "Lake Superior Shipwrecks." Also from his book it shows that on or about April 11th 1970 the Sherwin reported ice damage sustained on Lake Superior as did her fleetmate the Charles M. Schwab on April 14th. Wolff further reports that in 1986 on June 21st and 86 mph wind caused the Sherwin and Harry Coulby to part their lines and blew across their slip in Superior, Wisconsin. (POSTING BY "Nelson")
