Stewart J. Cort - Freshly Painted, Making a Rare Duluth Appearance

Here's a sight we don't see every day! This is the 1000-footer Stewart J. Cort arriving in Duluth, Minnesota on the afternoon of May 17, 2024. She had just come out of her winter layup which also saw her undertake her five-year inspection and maintenance in the dry dock at Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. While in dry dock, Interlake gave her a fresh coat of paint to make her sparkle again. It had been quite a while since the Cort was given fresh paint, so its unusual to see the Cort looking so sharp! It was especially nice that the sun was out to help display her fresh new paint.

The Cort was scheduled to load taconite (iron ore) pellets at the Burlington Northern dock in Superior for delivery to Burns Harbor, Indiana. But she first needed to visit the Cenovus dock in Duluth to take on fuel. As such, we got to see a relatively rare appearance from her in the Duluth shipping canal. She visits the canal on average just once or twice a year. The icing on the cake was a nice captain's salute from the Cort's rear horn, which has a deeper, more sonorous tone than the bow-mounted horn.

It won't take long for the Cort to accumulate the usual scuffs and scrapes to her paint that occurs when she goes through the Soo Locks and visits the docks where she loads and unloads. It's the normal wear and tear these lake boats receive. So seeing the Cort with nearly none of that wear is something I'm glad I could document!

Launched in 1972, the Stewart J. Cort is 1000-feet in length and 105-feet in width... the first of the 1000-foot "super lakers" built to take advantage of the expansion at the Soo Locks to accommodate larger-sized vessels. The Cort is powered by four General Motors EMD Diesel engines giving her a total of 14,000 horsepower. She is the only 1000-footer to be built with a forward-mounted pilot house. This pilot house also contains the crew quarters and galley, with no living accommodations in the stern. Her cargo capacity is 58,000 tons, which are accessed by hydraulically-driven deck hatches that are smaller in size than traditional deck hatches that are lifted off with a deck crane. Her self-unloading system discharges cargo at her stern, using a shuttle boom located under the side hatches near her smokestack. This unloading system is faster than the conventional self-unloader, but limits what ports she can unload at... as she requires a dock-side hopper to collect the ore and move it to the stockpile. Since the Cort usually only unloads at Bethlehem Steel in Burns Harbor, Indiana, she doesn't need the capability to unload at other ports.
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