SENATOR (steam screw) Shipwreck

About this property

SS Senator was a steel-hulled Great Lakes freighter that sank on Lake Michigan with the loss of nine lives and 268 Nash automobiles, on Halloween of 1929 after she was rammed in heavy fog by the bulk carrier Marquette. She lies in 450 feet (140 m) of water 16 miles northeast of Port Washington, Wisconsin. On April 12, 2016 her wreck was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Senator (Official number 116725) was built in 1896 by the Detroit Dry Dock Company of Wyandotte, Michigan. Her hull had an overall length of 420 feet (130 m), and she was 410 feet (120 m) between her perpendiculars, her beam was 45.6 feet (13.9 m) wide and her cargo hold was 28 feet (8.5 m) deep. She had a gross register tonnage of 4048.75 tons and a net tonnage of 3178.66 tons. She was powered by a 1,450-horsepower (1,081 kW) triple expansion steam engine which was fueled by two coal-burning Scotch marine boilers. Senator was launched on June 20, 1896 as hull number #122. She entered service on July 25, 1896. Senator was used to carry bulk cargoes such as iron ore, coal and later automobiles. She was also built using two unique early Great Lakes bulk carrier building techniques which were steel arches and a moveable water ballast system. She was originally owned by the Wolverine Steamship Company of Detroit, Michigan and named for George W. Roby (1823-1900), a retired Michigan lumberman whose son, John B. Roby, was president of the company. George W. Roby had been a state senator in Ohio before moving to Ludington, Michigan in 1871 and already had a wooden steamer of 1889 named for him. Matters in the ship yard of the Detroit Dry Dock Co. at Wyandotte are being arranged for the launching of the big steel steamer Senator on Saturday, the 13th. The Senator is one of the steamers of the 400-foot type and will be owned by the Wolverine Steamship Co., of which John B. Roby is president and in which Senator McMillan and other stockholders of the dry dock company are interested. The steamer will be managed by Capt. M.W. Humphries. She is 420 feet long over all, 400 feet keel, 45 feet beam and 28 feet deep, and will be propelled by a triple expansion engine with cylinders 22, 35 and 60 inches in diameter by 44 inches stroke. It is expected that on 16 feet draft she will carry about 4,800 gross tons of ore and that with this load her engines, which are of 1,400 horse power, will drive her at the rate of 13 miles an hour. A feature in this boat is a patent anchor in the extreme stern. This is to be used in case of emergency in the "Soo" river and other narrow channels when through current or the influence of a passing vessel control of the big steamer is lost and she begins to swing so as to bring her into dangerous proximity to another boat or to a rock or dock. She will carry one smokestack, two short spars forward of this, will be fitted with Howden hot draft, and will have a complete electric lighting plant, search light, full handling equipment, telephones to connect the master or pilot with distant parts of the ship, etc. Alike to other big coarse freight carriers of her kind, she will have no deck house or in fact anything between the boiler house and texas excepting the deck engines. The Senator will be sailed by Capt. H.B. McQueen, who has been in the Marina, S.S. Curry, Geo. F. McWilliams, John F. Eddy and other steamers.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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