[FOG HORN] [SEAGULLS] MAN 1: I still get butterflies when he's coming in.

The tugs or the light handlers there, what about the one in the wind, you know?

My main concern, I want to get it docked.

Into the port, and docked.

MAN 2: This ship was supposed to arrive about 2:00 AM this morning.

Because of the heavy fog, they put her out on the hook and brought her in this morning about 6:37 o'clock.

Normally I'd like to be here when the ship arrives to get them spotted properly for discharging.

When she's going to come in late like that, I'll leave that up to the line handlers and the agents.

I inform them exactly where I want the ship spotted.

All that communication was done the day before.

EDWARD RUISI: We are an extension of the owner.

And everything that the ship does comes-- has to come through our office first.

And then we OK it or don't OK it.

See that number four hackey coming right here.

EDWARD RUISI: When he docks, naturally I'm talking to the pier superintendent so I know that he's got his area of work covered.

I'll go on the ship, go up to the master, introduce myself as his representative and so on, which he knows, and then I'll tell him what the plan for that day will be.

I check all of the paperwork that we have to do, collect the manifest, collect his papers for the custom house, collect his document, shipping documents.

And then he'll have questions for me.

And he might have men for the dock, and I'll have to arrange that for him.

He'll be looking naturally for the ship chandler to buy groceries and usually the ship chandler is there when I-- when we come up together.

MAN 3: Is any of this an emergency or you want to bring it down Monday?

No, no, no.

You can make it everything on Monday.

OK. That's fine.

So he's not going to-- Yeah, OK. That's fine.

OK, I'm going to go ask the chief's maid a couple of questions and-- Also the chief engineer.

And also the engineer.

And then I'll come back and I'll get that box.

Steve's got questions for you, I'm sure.

Thanks, Captain.

I'll see you in a few minutes.

Good morning.

I'm going to climb up on the hatch here, now.

What I got to do here now is determine if-- what lift truck to put into the hold by the size of the coil.

Danny, let's rig up a little red for number four hold.

Tim Rogers.

TIM ROGERS: Yeah, Russ?

Yeah, listen-- when the guys come out, I want them to help Russ and Tommy hook up lift trucks.

Paul, Timmy.

TIM ROGERS: Will do.

RUSS WEDIN: The activities are not always the same.

There's a big variety here.

You could be loading a grain ship one day.

You could be loading general cargo.

You could working in the warehouse unloading boxcars.

There's a big variety of things to do down here.

And I think that helps us all a lot.

[ALARM] Our tonnage rate has increased considerably down here.

And we average anywhere from-- on coils, anywhere from 25 up as high as 30 lifts per hour.

So based upon that, we had 112 coils in number two hold, 117 coils in number four hold.

So we're looking at shortly after dinner completion of the coils.

And then we'll sweep the holds, take all the debris out, and make it suitable for grain ready.

Then there'll be an inspector that'll come down and he will do his inspection to make sure that the holds are clean, dry, and suitable for the grain cargoes.

It's just a matter now of when the ship gets completed, all the coils are checked when they come in.

Look for any damage on the coils.

Make sure that everything's noted.

These coils are all coming in from France.

They're for Keeler steel.

And there is about 19 different sizes and different gauges, thicknesses, and lengths.

And then what Keeler does is they will call for them on a daily basis of what coils they want.

And then we'll take the coil, take the outer wrapper off for them, and then load it on a truck where it's trucked down to Minneapolis.

STEVE ZAWACKI: It has to be cleaned out.

So what they're doing now is they'll sweep out the holds.

And it has to-- the cleanliness is the biggest thing.

When you're running between two different types of cargoes, it's to keep the holds clean.

And that's the hardest thing to do.

Well, it's all bulk cargoes, of course.

And this one can go to Halifax on the east coast of Canada.

That's where we went last trip.

Her main run is Thunder Bay, Duluth, Duluth to Nanticoke, with iron ore from Duluth here to Stelco Steel in Nanticoke.

[HORN] There's a crew of 27 on this one.

And-- MAN 4: [INAUDIBLE].

STEVE ZAWACKI: Midship.

MAN 4: Midship.

STEVE ZAWACKI: When you have a good crew, it makes a difference, when the crew works together.

Still about 50 feet up at red buoy now at 40 in a five hold.

STEVE ZAWACKI: You'll find sometimes you get on some ships and the crew just doesn't seem to be in sync.

And here-- I was on the Tavisack before I came here.

And both ships, the crew seemed to be in sync and be able to do the job and do it well.

And it makes your job easier, knowing that you've got a good crew to help you with it.

This corner here is probably about the worst one in the whole harbor.

And it's harder coming out, then of course when you're loaded and when you're coming in.

Well, in the dark-- in the dark, of course, it makes it a little bit different.

But in the fog, it can be quite a hairy experience.

Most of those sails and floaters there, they turn here and back up into the Midwest energy slip.

This is the telegraph.

What I'll do is put it to how many revs I want the engine to turn at.

Here it tells me how many revs it's actually turning at.

And, yeah, somebody down at the controls down in the engine room who actually opens the valves.

The only problem with this is that you're relying on somebody else to do the same moves are making up here.

So you have to be very conscious and watch it quite a bit.

The center of the Paul R. Tregurtha where the loading rig is.

I've got to slow down a little bit more here so we don't pull that big guy off the dock.

It's not so bad when you're light ship like this, when you're in ballast.

It's when you're loaded and you have any speed on.

You'll pull the other fellow right off the dock.

The unloading system here is already a control.

He is handling fives belts, the plow-feeder which directs the coal onto the belt.

It's a variable speed.

We can-- as we get towards the end of the hatch, we can lower the rate down.

But maximum is around 11,000, 11,200 ton an hour.

Main thing at this point in the load is just keeping track of the tonnage as we go, and ensuring the ballast water is taken on at the proper time.

MITCH HALLIN: You can see over the sign there.

Right now, we've got 29,280 or 293 on board.

We've got 3,912 in it's hat so far.

He's loading at 11, at 10.9, 10.8, that's 11,000 an hour.

He's running 100%.

Pretty good, Kam.

Pretty good.

Yeah, the Paul R. Tregurtha is the biggest laker.

We're 1,013 and a half feet long.

105 foot beam.

She was built in 1981, which I like.

Just a little bit bigger than a sports car.

They handle good.

We have twin screws, engines, where we got two engines on here.

A bow thruster.

She handles good.

She handles real good.

We've been hauling coal on here, oh, since about 1985 or 1986.

That's our main-- main cargo right now is coal, hauling from here down to St. Clair, Michigan.

If we leave here, it's about five and a half days for a round trip.

That's including loading and unloading.

First mate will come out for about the last hour to load and trim the vessel.

It's maximum draft for passage through St. Marys.

And ensure that the vessels in proper trim, that we're not down by the head, which means the bow is deeper than the stern.

And also ensure the vessel doesn't have an excessive sag or hog.

That's what they call-- they call it the trim shoot.

Average load-- see, last trip here we had 66,300 tons.

The trip before we were at 66,600.

Our limiting factor is water level in the St. Marys river.

So this trip we can load to a maximum draft of 27 feet 9 inches.

And that's considered a safe draft by the company for passage through the river.

For every inch of draft a vessel the size, you can gain approximately 237 tons of cargo.

So a couple inches either way, you spread that out over the course of the season, you're talking significant tonnage over the course of the year.

Steady up on the corner of the dock area.

Weather is the biggest thing.

I've seen myself come into this dock here with a-- on a shoot dock and-- midship-- where you have to have you're-- you've only got like, 8 inches clearance, or else you'll knock the shoots down on the knock.

And where I've had to-- the only place you could land your crew members to tie up is right actually right on the end of the pier.

And we were off at such a bad angle that I had to back-- I landed the fellows but then I had to back away and do a second try at it, because of the wind.

Yeah, Eric.

Let me know when they're sterns inside the corner here.

Once we get inside that corner the ship loaders dock.

ERIC (INTERCOM): OK. 35 port.

14 port now.

12 port now.

And 25 off the corner, just port of midship.

And the boys are going ashore.

JIM FRASER: you really got to have a lot of faith in that guy lowering you down.

Actually, one time I got lowered on top of a fence, barbed wire fence, one time.

The main thing is to get the guys out on the dock so that, you know, if we do have to get the wires on quickly, then they're there and also they're right on top of them.

You've got to be careful.

I mean, you know, obviously, you know, you get a guy on the boom, on that landing boom, and you're going to slack it down.

You know, you got to watch it.

As I call it, the demon drop.

Right there, fellas.

[INAUDIBLE] JIM FRASER: Eventually we're going to have to shift the boat back.

I mean, you know, to get loaded in different positions.

So we might as well just, you know, put as many lines out as we can, put as many bites on as we can so that all we have to do is just take them off as we shift back.

It's just a little bit easier.

[ALARMS] I'm just raising the boom up here so I can get it out of the road so the can bring the hatch crane back and we'll open up these hatches back here.

Once we get those off, then we'll be able to drop these shoots down and hopefully start loading, so-- we're talking to the foreman up there, too.

We're letting him know, yeah, OK, drop number 26, drop 24 or whatever.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] How are you?

How do you do, sir?

Good morning.

SENCER UNDER: We come as a boarding party of six, as such-- like agent, myself, USDA, when first go to captain interviews ourselves and get down to paperwork.

Thank you, thank you.

My last one.

SENCER UNDER: And our major involvement is safety.

Basically we are looking after the safety.

Everything depends upon the distribution.

If distribution is not proper, and everything goes wrong, so we make sure that pre-plan is quite realistic.

What is going to transpire is more or less reflected.

She's 12 years old.

For her age, she's very well kept, nice and clean, and the holes contain some rust but they're surface rust.

It's not lose.

So that will maintain.

She's really in good shape.

MIKE BEDNAREK: We're looking for trash on the deck, that type of stuff.

What they do with-- how they store their trash.

The big, big, concerns.

If they have wind, it'll blow right off the deck in the lakes and then becomes pollution that way.

So we'll just kind of generally show you what we do.

And then we'll go ahead up and talk to the captain.

I like the newer ones.

They've got elevators.

Morning.

WOMAN 1: Morning.

MIKE BEDNAREK: Captain around?

Captain, do you have the Coast Guards last boarding form that they left with you?

Yes.

Captain, we're going to do a nav safety.

We're going to check your certificates, and your charts.

So if we get someone to go up on the bridge-- OK.

I need to see these charts, and then I'm going to need to see the radar so if they're not warmed up, you might want to warm them up first.

OK, OK. No problem.

I make you see all the charts which you need.

And here, too.

OK, six zero is no longer valid.

OK, we'll let-- we'll let Ed know and he'll get you a new one.

That's no problem.

Your echo depth sounder.

It's over here.

Could you turn that on for me, please?

I'll switch it on.

RODOLFO PINEDA: In every port, it's the same thing.

I should say I'm getting used to it.

Well, first it is the regulation, the US Coast Guard regulation.

And in my opinion, it is also helping us in case we made some mistake, they have-- they can check it, you know?

And they can correct it, you know?

And then it's then, let's just say at the bottom line, it is also for the safety of the vessel.

MALE 5: Gonna start back here did you say, Mike?

She started by herself, so may as well just keep her coming.

This is cream of the crop.

A day like today, it's beautiful.

Our sterns coming to the corner now and she's up against all along.

Bad day?

Uh, 35 knot wind, rain, fog, Ice.

When ice starts, that's another hindrance.

So today is ideal.

[SEAGULLS] Back in the beginning, all they had was a compass.

Now we've got radar and we've got LORAN.

We've got GPS.

So it's all state of the art.

OK, you're going to start her around now, huh?

Hard port.

Started out as a deck hand.

And an engineer.

And then went into the pilot house.

Went off to school and got my license and got into the pilot house in '84.

[HORN] GEORGE LATOUR: Got to judge it where meet and you know, don't want to meet them on a turn.

OK, got the line up here now.

Don't want to meet them on the turn.

Best is out there in the harbor or right here in the east gate, like we did.

The other tug now is going to be coming around and being up on this side.

You can pull the stern up around the next turn here, while we bring the bow around the corner.

He'll lift the stern around.

MAN 6 (INTERCOM): We're all set back here again, Mike.

MIKE OPACK: Yeah, she's creeping to port a little bit here.

MAN 6 (INTERCOM): OK, Mike.

That's fine.

GEORGE LATOUR: The pilot, the pilot-- the master of the ship.

And we all work together.

So that things-- things don't go wrong, you know.

We have about three degrees and we'll be hitting on the end of the coal dock.

OK. See, as he's telling me we're he's-- what he's seeing, that gives us all an idea what the boat is doing.

If we're going too fast, if we need him to back it up so we can, you now, slow him down.

MAN 6 (INTERCOM): In ten degrees, or-- GEORGE LATOUR: OK. Middle of the face out here.

Swinging quite lively.

We'll get just up to past this red nun here and then start making a-- OK. A little bit more and I'll be up to the red nun.

When it gets touchy is when you start getting closer to the corner.

We want to make sure that the bow has swung clear of the corner.

Got about 300 feet yet the corner from your stern.

I'll bring the bows-- bring the now in, and Dean brings his stern over.

And then we bring the boat kind of sideways.

LOUIS DESMARAIS: Do you have a 25 ton to go on number 19?

Sure we'll just take a couple minutes.

Then you can go ahead and shift.

BOB STAGER: They'll send up for facts, a loading list up, and what exactly he wants in each hatch.

And we just correspond the hatch to the shuttle that it lines up with.

Punch in the numbers on the scale, whichever, how much ever he wants in each one.

Run the shuttles out to line up over the hatches, and start to go.

The shuttles run about 1,200 tons an hour each, so if you're running all 18 shuttles, you can run 21,000, 22,000 tons of ore.

These are long tons per hour.

21,000 tons would be 1 and 1/2 train loads or ore cars hauling 100 tons each, 160 car trains.

It would be 1 and 1/2 trains per hour.

The top set of buttons is used to extend or retract the shuttles.

This set is for starting the conveyor belts.

Only using these two right now.

And this is for the West side arch gates that are underneath the west bins, silos.

And this is for the east side ones.

And so we don't open up the wrong ones at the wrong time and load nash into a hib tack boat, there's a switch right there that locks out the east side one so it cannot be open.

One half of the silo is hib tack and the other set is national.

This here keeps track of all the ore coming into the dock and going out of the dock at the same time.

It'll tell you how much is into the ship right now.

How much is left in the dock right now.

This side will show the national side, and of course, nothing loaded.

5,800 tons in the dock.

It'll also tell you how much is in each shuttle.

Right now there's 246 tons in bin number 20.

It also is keeping track of number 20 which I'm loading right now and filling right now at the same time, so it's pretty amazing.

Hello, Nate.

NATE: Hello.

BOB STAGER: That's all of it.

You can go ahead and shift number 21 under 20 bill.

NATE: 21 under 20.

OK.

Your first run came out right You have 14,325 tons on board right now.

NATE: That's pretty close to perfect.

Thank you.

I've been here since the dock open in 1977, so you get a chance to know these people and develop a rapport with them.

I enjoy it.

It's interesting.

I like loading the boats and you get a nice view.

The whole harbor and all the sunsets.

MATT HARBINSON: You can't put too much in the middle because you'll take a belly on her.

It's just that they're not light in the middle, and they're like very tender forward.

What I mean by tinder, you can't put too much cargo up there.

Most of it's straight out after half the kit.

All the docks at Nigh are all straightforward.

They're all built for speed.

They can load you in four, five bars.

They can pull records of over in Duluth docks, like 60,000 tons in four hours.

That's a lot of tonnage, you know/ And I guess they're proud of it, too, because they've got it all in big signs, you know?

I started sailing in 1958.

I started-- I went to see school in England, a place called Vindin Hedreichs.

And then I went to-- I sailed with-- no, I sailed with Kinnaird first.

And then I sailed with P&O, Pacific and Orient.

And then I decided to come over here.

Whenever you leave home and you're 15, what difference does it make?

You've been all around the world.

I'd been all around the world before I was 20.

So-- a couple of times INTERVIEWER: Would you recommend it to your kids?

No.

INTERVIEWER: No?

Why not?

Because you miss-- you miss, like, if you're married and you've got kids, you just-- it's too short.

Life is too short for that, because you miss a lot of them growing up.

There is a lot of break-ups in marriages but you got to have the right person, what you call, to get married to, to what they call they understand what kind of a business you're in, you know?

It's just like a traveling salesman.

He's never at home either.

But what can you do?

That's just the business you're in.

Federal Fraser, Federal Fraser, [INAUDIBLE].

We are arriving to your gangway in about 20 minutes.

[HORN] CAPT.

NICHOLAS SKORICH (VOICEOVER): It's always exciting.

Even after 40 years, it's exciting.

But it's-- the part I enjoy the most is meeting the people.

There-- you know, these people are coming from all over the world.

Captain, CAPT.

RAJ KHANNA: How are you?

CAPT.

NICHOLAS SKORICH: Very good, sir, very good.

You got the anchor up?

CAPT.

RAJ KHANNA: Yeah, we're just gettig up to about [INAUDIBLE] coming up now.

CAPT.

NICHOLAS SKORICH: OK, everything working good, huh?

CAPT.

RAJ KHANNA: Oh, yeah.

Security call, security call to Federal Fraser.

Inbound Duluth Piers in 15 minutes.

We'll be berthing at [INAUDIBLE] and Superior.

Federal Fraser to the target [INAUDIBLE].

SECURITY OFFICER (OVER RADIO): Hello there, Nick.

I heard your security call there, and we'll meet down there at the entry.

CAPT.

NICHOLAS SKORICH (VOICEOVER): It's the responsibility of the pilots really is to get the vessel from point A to point B as quickly and safely as possible.

Starboard 10.

CAPT.

NICHOLAS SKORICH (VOICEOVER): The aerial bridge is actually very dangerous.

There's a-- like, for example, if you have a heavy rain a day or two before, you have current coming out of the St. Louis River through the harbor.

If you had a good northeast wind a couple days before that, you still have current coming from the northeast, and sometimes you have a couple different currents involved.

CAPT.

NICHOLAS SKORICH: Starboard 10.

[HORN] The route is all right, but now this time short-- I mean the time is so short that really-- here we will be here for two days now.

And today they're not working.

But sometimes you work.

You come and you start work immediately, and within a day or so you're out.

It does got it's own ups and downs, but I love it.

Because that's why I've been here from 6 years now.

And I think another 10 years maybe or 15 years, if all goes well.

TUG BOAT PILOT (OVER RADIO): We've got the tow line here.

We're all hooked up.

CAPT.

RAJ KHANNA: All hooked up.

Thank you.

This pigeon joined ship in the English Channel.

That was about one month back.

There are three of them, and two of them have just thrown away.

But this one is not going, and I think now he-- I don't think he's going to go away.

Maybe he, when we go back to Antwerp, that's when he'll-- CAPT.

NICHOLAS SKORICH: OK, Dean, we're going to-- we're going to go in a little bit.

CAPT.

NICHOLAS SKORICH (VOICEOVER): And we have to work together with the tug captain.

It's very, very important, and the more you work with the same ones, the easier it is.

Like the port of Duluth captains are the best I've seen in 40 years.

When making a berth, for example, you'll hear us talking about, oh, this building and that building are in line.

The middle of the bridge is lining up.

The ranges are lined up in the north side, and the north side of the dock is opening up, and we're were talking about different marks.

And the reason we use these landmarks is because they're stationary and the same all the time, so we try to do it the same way all the time.

And we don't have to worry about the building moving or anything.

And, of course, in fog, we have to do it by radar.

Well, Harvest States is probably one of the most difficult berths to make.

The reason is as soon as you pass under the Blatnik Bridge, you've got a 90 degree turn to the left.

And you almost have to be stopped.

So if you've got any wind coming from blowing off the lake, it's very difficult, and you only have a couple of ship lanes to the berth involving another 90 degree turn.

And most foreign ships have bow thrusters, so this is where your best friend is your tug captain.

CAPT.

NICHOLAS SKORICH: You all set there, George?

TUG BOAT PILOT (OVER RADIO): Start picking the stern up.

CAPT.

NICHOLAS SKORICH: OK. Lots of room on the green bouy there, George.

I've got 80 feet.

TUG BOAT PILOT (OVER RADIO): All righty, good 80.

About 50 more feet off there.

Midship.

Starboard?

TUG BOAT PILOT (OVER RADIO): That dust collector there.

OK, you might be starting to buzz just a hair up here at about 45 maybe.

Yeah, OK, just stay up there and give me the distance there and I'll thruster over CAPT.

RAJ KHANNA: Now we are going to pick up soybeans, 25,000 tons, and then we go to [INAUDIBLE], load another 10,000 tons.

And then we go to Ghent, Belgium.

We store the cargo [INAUDIBLE].

JOHN TAIVALOJA: Usually, we're just about empty when the vessel gets here.

It's pretty close.

Once the boat is tied up and secure, the hoses are hooked up first on the shore side and then on the vessel side.

Then the material is conveyed by air through the hoses to the top of the silos.

We have one terminal employee that stays on top of silos.

It's usually about a 13-hour process to unload here.

Most of the time we take about 10,000 tons here.

We have a draft constriction in Duluth, so that's why we always-- the vessel always comes here first, because we have enough draft for the vessel here.

But we have to take off a minimum of 5,000 tons here before we can get the vessel into Duluth.

This used to be the Leon Fraser.

It was built for the Pittsburgh Steamship Company in '42, which later became US Steel all its USS Great Lakes fleet.

The way it was, it was 640 feet, and it was too long to fit at our dock and Alpena to load, so they cut it in half, and took 120 feet out of it and welded it back together, of course, and there the way it is today.

Good old Larry, he's the third engineer on board here, and what we were doing is we were leaving the Superior plant and coming over to Duluth.

[ALARM] And what he was doing was operating the main engine.

Then, of course, the telegraph there was coming from the pilot house telling them what they wanted, either a head or a stern and what speed.

[ALARM] With the green wheel there, that's the head wheel.

And that runs the turbine in the head.

And, of course, depending on how much you open the valve is how fast the engine will turn.

So when he wants to back up, the he has to shut that one off and open up the red wheel, and that starts the stern turbine, and she'll go the other way then, start backing down.

You figure that we've got a small city here.

You know, we have our own restaurant.

We have our own room.

We make our own electricity.

We have our sewage plant, so we can take care of.

So it's just like a little city all by itself.

Where we tie up here is so convenient to downtown here, in five minutes, you're up on the Main Street.

And, of course, some of the guys like to go down to the casino there and exchange money.

See, it's one of a kind.

They're starting to disappear, the old steam boats.

[HORN] CAPT.

JOHN LUKAN: Loading at the gallery of Harvest States is the Helena Oldendorff.

As I said, this is an ocean freighter.

This ship is registered out of Panama.

As we get a little closer here, you'll see the Panamanian flag flying at the stern of the ship.

ANGEL MALAN: This is a mixed crew, you know.

We don't have one crew ship.

We have mostly mixed.

Now they are starting.

You are getting crew from the ex-Russian federation and from Yugoslavia and Croatia.

They're all mixed now.

It's much better than when you have one nationality on board.

You have less problems, because they get together you know.

One or two crew members from one country or some seven, so normally they go together.

WOMAN: Your name is and where you're from?

I'm [INAUDIBLE] from Philippines.

My [INAUDIBLE] is Chile.

WOMAN: What's your name?

Fernando.

I'm from Maldives.

[INAUDIBLE] WOMAN: How long have you been working on ships?

I don't know.

It's a long time.

I start 1978, [INAUDIBLE].

WOMAN: And you live in Turkey?

Yes, I live in Turkey.

WOMAN: What city?

[INAUDIBLE].

WOMAN: Your name?

My name?

My name is [INAUDIBLE].

I have-- my first time I was 28 years ago in Duluth, and it was August.

It was beautiful, fantastic there.

I pass all of this.

I was as an apprentice in those days, so it was very interesting.

Not it's more difficult because of the responsibility and the all these things so not anymore great fun as it was before.

But he's helping me to understand seaman life, because a lot of people came on ship, they're learning different side of life.

There's the people normal living here or, I don't know, living a shore, they cannot feel this probably.

So travelling all of countries, seeing different kind of people, different kind of cultures, I mean, when you have all these things, then you forget about hard work sometimes.

What's your name?

Alfred.

Alfred?

Yeah.

OK, and how about your partner?

He's Ramil, aren't you?

Who?

Ramil.

Ramil?

Yeah.

Aha, OK, Alfred and Ramil.

MARKO LATKOVIC: Well, actually, this is a nice port.

If we go to Algiers, it'll be-- well, not like a prison, but every day only two persons are allowed to go ashore.

They are being controlled by the immigration.

So each day, I have to give permission to only two crew members.

They can go ashore, and they have to come back at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, from 8:00 to 5:00.

CAPT.

JOHN LUKAN: As a result of traveling in salt water, you can see quite a bit of rust on this ship.

They do a pretty good job of trying to keep it painted, keep up with the rust, but eventually, that salt water takes its toll.

Usually the life span of an ocean freighter is perhaps 35, 40 years at the very most, if it's really well taken care of.

Well, it's the crew that does a lot of the work, and you can see them hanging over the bow here.

It looks like they've been sanding then priming rough spots up on the bow in preparation for painting.

ROY VOEKS: We're loading 60,000 into-- 30,000 in this tank and 30,000 in that tank, and they're almost getting done filling up that tank.

This is going to go out to the James Barker.

But first, we have to deliver 20 metric tons of diesel fuel to the Helena.

It's a real challenge to operate a ship this size without any bow thruster in these small little slips.

He's a good captain.

He's just using the two main engines.

Fortunately it has dual rudders and twin-screw vessel, so they're a little bit easier to maneuver-- a twin-screw vessel.

In the domestic trade, they have the operation down to a science.

They know exactly what to do.

We don't have to get off on the dock.

They take our lines.

But these guys they don't understand English.

It's kind of hard to communicate with them, so it's just better off Brian gets dropped off and goes up there and takes care of tying us off.

Three of us have radios, and Brian as a radio up on the ship.

He has to see the chief right away.

He has to go up and get the declaration signed.

We always have to face the stern, because we use our boom and swing it out.

And usually, that's right in front of the cabin.

OK, diesel coming your way.

A sample of the product, we give it to them.

We keep the first one for ourselves, and then we give them this one.

This is the sample of the oil which we are receiving.

Because how can we know?

It's going through the black hose.

Maybe they put the whiskey or we don't know [INAUDIBLE], maybe gasoline.

ROY VOEKS: It just takes a long time to take care of everything, because they're not used to dealing with us.

It's very rare that you get the same salt water ship more than once a year.

[BELL RINGS] [ATTENDANCE BEING TAKEN] Well, most of the kids that-- I mean most of the guys, they all grew up down in north end of town, and all they've done all their life is sail on the lakes, work in the elevators, or loaded ships.

Just going to make it.

whoa, whoa.

Now, this job here is a hit and a miss.

Now, this is the first we've worked since last, what, Thursday.

It' a job where when you're busy, you're never home.

You done at 10 o'clock at night.

Your back down at the hall at 6:30, something like that-- 7 o'clock.

The day starts all over.

You can let her come on number 3 too.

JAMES 'SHAMUS' LANCOUR: The lake is usually a straight shot.

Usually, they just about fill them up.

Maybe it might go a little bit short, but they're down to the draft.

And they got 20 some hatches you've got to fill up.

And here, these boats mostly, like these newer ones, are about five holds.

Some of them are seven.

Probably got to a little under only three holds.

[INAUDIBLE] Well, if stevedore is the, I guess, in the very basic sense, he's the employer, and the longshoremen are the employees.

We hire the longshoremen to load the ship.

We do the coordinating between the shipper or the elevators and the vessel itself, working with the chief mate and the captain.

A ship is a teeter-totter, and basically, all you're doing is putting a little grain here, a little bit of grain there.

It's just a question of knowing how much to put in, where, and the fact that the ships do bend, and they do take stresses, so you've got a load in a certain sequence, so that you're not damaging the vessel.

JAMES VELTUM: The ship loaders job in the gallery, he's running various equipment that splits grain off to the various spots, one spot, one through five.

And he's in charge of that equipment and the contact with the deck boss of the longshore on deck.

The ship loader, though, that's a very important job.

He's got the whole thing coming at you, 60,000 bushels and hour.

On the scale floor we have one person who is weighing the grain, going on board ship, and that is his sole function.

He's operating the scales, they're full electronic and semiautomatic.

It's up to him to make sure that the grain is properly weighed.

The amount of grain weighed is then reaching the ship.

Right now I've got 192,000 bushels weighed to the ship.

And you convert that to pounds, that's 11,520,000 pounds.

You sell it quality specification.

This particular cargo here in the Ollendorff is a three hard amber.

It could be a two hard amber.

There's a lot of different factors that go into it.

And one of the things we do at the Harvest States elevators, we make quality separations on grain coming in.

You've got a test weight specification.

You've got moisture.

You've got [INAUDIBLE].

You've got falling numbers.

You've got the [INAUDIBLE].

You've got hard amber counts.

You've got damage, form, material, dockage, falling number, sedimentation.

You've got many, many different factors involved, and we test for all these various things on the grain prior to its unloading.

Then separate it and bin it accordingly.

At this elevator we have 625 bins in it.

We normally run four belts, three legs, two scale, a at the same time and it's a warehousing challenge to know where your quantity of your grain is, know what the quality is, and keep it all seperate, and then combine it back to together, and you might run 30, 40 bins on a mix at any one time.

We had the Lake Ontario in and out in one day.

We had the Federal Fraser in.

It took almost 26,000 tons out in a couple day.

And now we're on the Olendorff, and we've got a couple of ships coming in right behind this, so we've got to keep moving here.

[MUSIC PLAYING] JAMES VELTUM: Yeah, we have 14,500 metric tons are on board right now.

It's going to take 18-- 1,182, so we're coming down to the home stretch, 3,600 to go.

We thought we will finish in about, let's say, two or three days.

The problem was that the cargo was not ready.

You see, the color of the cargo should be the same.

Otherwise, they will not accept it in the next port, these charts.

JAMES VELTUM: The reputation of the port Duluth-Superior, it's had a very good reputation of a fast turn in and out, especially at the Harvest States elevator.

And this was one of these anomalies to the whole operation.

We decided, elected, to put the ship on a little early, and we did not find that we had quite the quality, later on.

Normally, a ship like this would be and out of here in about 16 hours.

ANGEL MALAN: You have to be patient too.

You wait for the cargo and everything.

But like now, the weather is not so good, and I think are predicting rain this afternoon.

That's why they did not take any break, the stevedores, because they like to finish the ship.

STEVEDORE (OVER RADIO): All right, let's going on there as soon as we can.

We need better than 50/50 back there.

LONGSHOREMAN (OVER RADIO): All right, I'll get them to open it up.

STEVEDORE (OVER RADIO): All right.

Most stevedores are paid by the ton.

So if you're not loading in tonnage as fast as possible, you're not making any money.

And so the name of the game is to keep it rolling and keep it moving and be one step ahead and know that something is going to go wrong and be ready to do adjust for it.

The patience is a must.

But on the other hand, you've got to have an extreme sense of urgency.

You can't just say, oh, I'll do that a little bit later.

Uh-uh, you've got to make moves, and you've got to make them right now.

And so that sense of urgency is always with you, even though you may not show it.

It's there, and it's boiling down inside.

Well, it may get down to use, say, one and-- say maybe one and five for trim.

There'd be a guy up forward, one of the crew or something.

Then the stevedore will be down there.

Then they'll check in the after draft and the [INAUDIBLE] mark on the midship over there.

Then they'll go back and forth-- so many tons back there and then so many ton up there.

Then they'll talk for 15, 20 minutes.

Then another ton here and a couple ton there.

They never can agree on what's going on.

LONGSHOREMAN (OVER RADIO): Three inches, number one port.

CHARLES ILENDA: What we're doing is we're going to draft.

Finding out, according to the draft, how much cargo's on board, and if I continue the way I'm going, what my draft is going to be in an hour from now, or do I have to make any adjustments?

Do I change percentages?

Do I leave it alone?

Everybody wants to know when are you going to be done, and is it going to rain?

So, yeah, you get a few of these variables that you throw in there.

400 feet there, number two.

LONGSHOREMAN (OVER RADIO): Feet on two.

ANGEL MALAN: We are not enough to sail outside the open sea without the good stability.

The ship might capsize, you know, the moment the cargo shifts.

Because this is not full, you can see it will not be full.

Number one and number five will be slight, so it will not be-- you know, the more cargo you have, the better.

If you have less cargo, be the shifting moment is so much that it might capsize the ship.

JAMES 'SHAMUS' LANCOUR: The only thing that we've got to kind of keep it level.

That's the requirement by the Canadian Coast Guard.

Grain's got to be halfway decent level on the hold, you know, when you're not filling up.

It's either half full-- they've got to be kind of level.

Shutting number two off.

STEVEDORE (OVER RADIO): Two is off.

JAMES 'SHAMUS' LANCOUR: Some of these young kids don't know how to use a shovel.

They're going like they've got a teaspoon.

You've got to put your back to it.

That's why we're in good shape.

DON PARKER: Well, today we're unloading some limestone here.

We have two types of limestone product.

We have one out of Calcite, Michigan, which calcite stone, which is a type of limestone.

And the other type is a dolomite stone out of Port Dolomite, Cedarville, Michigan.

And we blend it here and unload about a 50-50 mix is what we're going to try for.

And they use it to process taconite or process ore into taconite pellets on the [INAUDIBLE].

We have a conveyor system that runs underneath our hulls here.

We have hydraulic gates.

We have a man or, in this case, two men down there manually operating the hand levers.

And we have signal lights which [INAUDIBLE] by amperage as to how much a load to put on.

Basically, just make sure you don't get an overload, because if you get an overload, then you have spillage inside of our system.

And if you get a bad spill, you can-- you'll have to shut down the conveyor.

Here we're regulated by what the hopper can take.

Under normal situation, onloading onto an open pile, we can onload between 6,000 and 7,000 tons an hour.

But here I think we're down to about maybe 3,00 or 3,500.

This boat still has the classic steamboat style.

You know, there's a pointed bow and a forward pilot house, as opposed to most of the newer ones that are built after the early '70s.

They all have every-- all the cabins are on the stern end, They have a round bow.

They just don't have any-- I don't believe they have any personality.

CAPT.

JAMES DIETLIN: Security, security, security-- W 4805, Arthur M. Anderson, outbound Duluth harbor going out the [INAUDIBLE] doors.

[BELL RINGING] OK, you can rest some now, Tommy.

First of all, you've got to start out slow, because you get the wheel will suck on the dock, and so you've got to run the engines slow and then increase as you go.

My main job is to see that the ship run smoothly.

I may have to make all the docks and take it away from all the docks.

I have to be around the pilot house in the rivers.

It's my responsibility to take it through the locks-- the two locks-- and back out of the locks.

OK, Tommy, you can steer around to the left.

TOMMY: To the left.

We'll come under bridge anchor.

TOMMY: Under bridge anchor.

Today coming out we had The Barker ahead of us, so we can go faster than he can, because we were light, and he was loading, you know.

The Barker's blocked.

Yeah, Block here.

What do you want to do?

I got about 15 minutes.

I'll be out that [INAUDIBLE].

Yeah, I'm just over three miles from it now.

Let's see, how about I just-- I don't check until I get a mile out, so it won't take me long to get in here, and I'll get up in the anchorage and then see if you want to get down around cargo somewhere.

We'll just pass you right here.

OK, there's two of us you know.

There's the Arthur M. Anderson right behind me.

Yeah, I seem him there, so yeah, we'll get her in there and get out of your guys' way and get up in the anchorage area, and we should be OK. CAPT.

JAMES DIETLIN: Then we ended up stopping off at [INAUDIBLE] Point there because we had the Joseph Block coming in.

So we waited for Block to get in, the Barker to get out.

They closed the bridge to kind of let the traffic through a little bit.

You can steer her out to the right there, Tommy, and I'll leave you a little engine there.

[RINGING] There's a current running through the piers there, so you have to watch it when you come around the traffic, boy, because it can set you down and onto the shore in a hurry there at times.

BRIDGE OPERATOR (OVER RADIO): Ariel Bridge to the Anderson.

We're on our way up now, Captain.

CAPT.

JAMES DIETLIN: OK, thanks a lot.

I will give it.

You don't want to be going too fast coming around there either.

That curve gets you at your bow.

It won't let you come around to line up to the piers.

OK, now you can come faster, Tom.

TOMMY: Run faster.

Yeah, we'll come down the center, Tom.

TOMMY: Down center.

Right about after him should be good there, Tom.

[HORN] [HORN] ANGEL MALAN: Well, you get used to this already.

And when you leave another port, you go to another port.

CHIEF ENGINEER FROM HELENA OLLENDORFF: This is difficult.

Anyway it is difficult.

It is not very easy to sail, but the job is interesting, nice.

Security, security, security, the Helena Ollendorff is setting up lines at Harvest State number one and Superior will be backing way with two tugs and will going out Duluth Piers.

Security, call the Helena Ollendorff is setting up lines at Harvest State number one, be backing away.

The two tugs, the Kansas and the Vermont are going to be going out Duluth Piers, departing in about 15 minutes.

The Helena Ollendorf checking in concerning traffic.

TUG BOAT PILOT (OVER RADIO): OK, Randy, start her back.

Start her back easy.

Right about on the bow in about 15 aft.

Well, last year it was four and a half months and I got home for one day.

I find that's the biggest thing.

You're going to have a-- your wife must be pretty strong to put up with you-- to put up with this kind of job.

You've got to like it; you're here all the time.

If you don't, you might as well stay home.

TUG BOAT PILOT (OVER RADIO): OK, she's just coming away on that stern and just ease it back in a little bit farther.

OK.

I started here on the waterfront on June of 1960.

I got out of high school, and I've been here ever since It's been my life.

I found out you don't have Monday morning blues either.

You just have to go to work.

It doesn't look like it, but a busy Sunday anyway, even if you're at home.

So there's no Monday morning blues, and I found that to be true.

The [INAUDIBLE] is coming by the Great Lakes [INAUDIBLE] and now she's looking for a lift.

Looking just fine.

We'll be out of here in plenty of time.

TUG BOAT PILOT (OVER RADIO): [INAUDIBLE] coming, and thanks for coming out.

You betcha.

[BELL RINGING] So you do the best you can, and it's all a handshake and a smile.

That's unusual in this day and age.

[SHIP HORN] [MUSIC PLAYING]