In the seventy-three remarkable years that the iron hulled Canadian passenger steamer Kingston remained in service on the Great Lakes; from 1855 to 1928, its worst enemy appeared to be fire. Flames ravaged the ship twice in quick succession, in 1872 and again in 1873. The Kingston was partially burned agaln in 1905. Each time it was rebuilt to run again. Click For Story

Back when the British Navy was the finest naval fleet in the world the Revenge was among the famed ships that helped rule the high seas. The Revenge was a 500-ton galleon built in 1577 by the leading English shipwright Matthew Baker. With its new "race-built" design, the Revenge was considered among the finest galleons in the world. The high poop deck, a feature of the older galleons, was replaced by a lower series of decks stepped down into the waist of the ship. She had a lower forecastle. This made the Revenge a "long lean fighting machine" of its time. But all great warships have a final battle. This is how the Revenge met its end. Story

A 286-foot 14-year-old luxury liner will be entering the Great Lakes this summer under the name Saint Laurent. The vessel’s new owners say the ship has been entirely rebuilt and prepared for an introductory voyage in July from Montreal to Chicago, hitting all of the five Great Lakes. Click For Story

The crowded 19-year-old two-deck ferry Aung Tagun-3 capsized in a storm off the coast of Myanmar, formerly the nation of Burma on Friday, March 13, leaving more than 60 passengers dead, authorities said. Because the vessel was packed with over 200 people, many of their names not on the ship’s manifest, the exact death toll may never be known. The ferry left the port of Taunggok with about 129 tons of cargo and its decks crowded with passengers in the evening, bound north for Sittwe. When about 50 miles into the voyage the vessel was struck by heavy rains and rough weather that capsized and then sank it off the town of Myebon, officials said. More Story

When launched at Port Huron, Michigan in 1893, the wooden hulled steam barge Lloyd S. Porter was designed to be a bulk cargo carrier and nothing more. At 159 feet in length, the Porter was one of a fleet of carriers operating on the Great Lakes in those years that carried lumber, iron ore, coal and other bulk cargos. Click For Story

The horror of the blast that wrecked the Port Huron, Michigan ferry Omar D. Conger and killed four crew members on March 26, 1922, caused people at first to overlook the fact that a miracle had happened. The explosion sent pieces of the red-hot boiler flying hundreds of feet through the air in all directions where they left a path of destruction. A second steamship, the Cheboygan, with about two hundred passengers, was only a few hundred feet away and approaching the dock. While people were hurt, the miracle was that only four people died. Read More

A huge lumber pile at the mouth of the Black River was blamed for a collision that sank the ferry steamer Grace Dormer at Port Huron on July 25, 1883. Capt. Ed Thomas, master of the seventy-six-foot long ferry, was criticized for running his vessel blindly out of the Black River and into the busy St. Clair River without blowing the boat’s whistle. But Thomas also was praised for daring action, which probably saved his passengers from drowning. Click For Story

The Italian car and passenger ferry Norman Atlantic caught fire and burned during a routine voyage in the Adriatic Sea, from Patras, Greece, to Ancona, Italy, during the early morning hours of December 28, 2014. At least 12 passengers out of an estimated 500 passengers and crew members were believed to have perished. Story

On December 30, 2014, the Greek Coast Guard was alerted to the possibility that a ship off the Mediterranean Island of Othonoi was carrying "illegal immigrants" after authorities received a strange cell-phone emergency call from an unknown person. Before the Coast Guard could dispatch assistance a person claiming to be the ship’s captain reported that it was a false alarm. He said the ship was in no danger and not requesting assistance. At that time the vessel changed course and steamed toward southern Italy without a crew. That ship was the cargo carrier Blue Sky M. Click For More

Lone before the U. S. Navy began naming warships after the State of Alabama, at least two popular steamers sailed the Great Lakes under that same name. Both enjoyed relatively successful careers as passenger and freight carriers. The first Alabama on record was a 234-foot wooden side-wheel steamer launched at Detroit in 1848. The second Alabama was launched for the Goodrich Transit Co. of Chicago in 1909. It was a propeller driven ship with a steel hull. Click For Story