Draft:Sandbox

SS S.T. Crapo (1927)

Construction

ST Crapo sails through ice.

The SS S.T. Crapo was an American flagged lake freighter built in River Rouge, MI, in 1927. The ship was commissioned in the winter of 1926 and completed in July of 1927. S.T. Crapo was named after the secretary of the Huron Cement Company, Mr. Stanford Tappan Crapo. The ship, when christened on July 7, 1927, was only the second ship on the Great Lakes to be commissioned as a cement carrier, and not refitted after her launch. She was built as hull No. 256 by the Great Lakes Engineering Works. She was built with an 'arch style' cargo hold and decks, meaning that water could easily roll off of the weather decks in heavy seas. Her holds could carry 4769 gross registered tons of cement, and then discharge them in a state of the art self unloading system. Crapo would be only the second cement carrier to be built with an unloading system from the keel up. She was constructed with coal-fired boilers, and carried a single triple-expansion steam engine. After her launch in July of 1927, she was moved to the Great Lake Engineering Works' outfitting wharf, to be fitted with her engines and cabins. She was placed into cement service in August of the same year.

Career

The S.T. Crapo had a relatively uneventful career, serving as the flagship of her Huron Cement fleet until 1965. She and her sisters were merged into their parent fleet, Huron Portland Cement Co. The entire HPC fleet was sold in 1966 to the National Gypsum Company, based out of Detroit, MI. Just ten years prior, in 1955. The entire fleet was sold again in 1987 to private investors. These investors chartered Inland Lakes Management to operate the fleet of cement haulers, an agreement that persists to this day. Crapo received an upgrade to oil-fired boilers in 1995, by Bay Shipbuilding, in Sturgeon Bay, WI.

Fate

Crapo was laid up in Green Bay, WI on September 4, 1995. The ship was converted to a cement storage barge, and in 2022 was scrapped by a Canadian company.