Graveyard of the Lakes

6. Bean Counters, Bureaucrats, and Cowboy Captains: The Human Factor in Shipwrecks

BEAN COUNTERS, BUREAUCRATS, AND COWBOY CAPTAINS: The Human Factorin Shipwrecks Tr^\ URING THE CIVIL WAR, ONE HISTORIAN SAID THAT )) while shipping losses on the lakes varied greatly ^=^ from year to year, there were times, especiallylate in the season, when the weeklyreports resembled reports from a battlefield.1 Unfortunately, the carnage on the lakes was just beginning in the 1860s. There werejust over 200 hundred serious shipping casualties during that entire decade. How would the Civil War-era historian have reacted to the 568 serious wrecks that occurred during the 1880s, or the more than 600 that took place during the first decade of the twentieth century? When we look closely at the thousands of shipwrecks and deaths that have occurred on the lakes, it seems obvious that many of them could have been avoided. Government regulators have just been too timid, shipowners too callous, captains too reckless, and crews too complacent to correct the problems that led to shipwrecks. In studying the history of groundings and strandings, for example, it's clear that most occurred while ships were operating during fog, snow, or rain. At the same time, the shipping companies expected their ships to keep running during periods of limited visibility, and government regulators allowed them to do so. Even after navigational aids like radio direction-finding and radar became available, many shipowners didn't install the equipment on their ships until they were forced to do so. Between 1870 and 1940, manyofthe most serious groundings involved unpowered barges that were driven aground in storms after being cut 331 jj2 Bean Counters, Bureaucrats, and Cowboy Captains loose or breaking loose from the steamers towing them. Many wrecks and deaths could have been avoided if companies had simply abandoned the dangerous practice of having their steamers tow barges. Because the barges didn't have engines, they were "uninspected vessels," not covered under the various marine safety laws. Government regulators, however, had to be well aware of the terrible toll being taken on barges and their crews, yet there's no evidence that officials of the Steamboat Inspection Service ever tried to have them prohibited, or at least brought under their control. Fires were a natural consequence of having wooden ships, or iron- or steel-hulled shipswithwoodenbulkheads andfixturesin their cabin areas, and many sources of ignition present—sparks and ashes from boilers, kerosene lamps, heat stoves and galley ranges fueled with wood or coal, and cigars and cigarettes smokedbypassengers and crewmembers. Devastating shipboard fires provided the impetus for many of the marine safety regulations put into effect from 1838 to the present, yetfirescontinued to be a serious problem untilwooden ships disappeared and the extensive use ofwood in outfitting cabins and galleys wasfinallybanned in 1962. Many of the wooden ships that burned, especially after the turn of the century, were more than forty years old. Little more than floating tinderboxes of questionable seaworthiness, they were still running only because of the greed of their owners and the laxness of the steamboat inspectors. While marine safety laws and regulations dating back to 1838 required ships to be equipped with fire-fighting equipment, and crews were eventually required to hold regular fire drills, there is no evidence that any fire-fighting trainingwas provided until the 1980s, and then only for new officers. In a pattern that would become familiar, government regulators implemented requirements forfiredrills, then failed to follow up to ensure that meaningful drills were actually being held. At the same time, there is also no evidence that shipowners were committed to ensuring that their crews were prepared to fight a fire if one broke out. Like fires, collisions between ships took a heavy toll, particularly in the days when there were many passenger steamers operating on the lakes. Almost all collisions were the result of either poor visibility or pilot error. While the rules of the road that were in effect after 1864 required ships to slow down when visibility was limited, there's ample evidence that most ships continued to run along at full speed. Shipping companies either encouraged or tolerated that dangerous practice. With the exception of the river patrol that was established in the St. Marys River in 1897, there is no evidence that either the Steamboat Inspection Service or The Human Factor in Shipwrecks JJJ the Coast Guard ever aggressively enforced the rule requiring ships to reduce speed during periods of limited visibility. Banning ships from operating...