Last updated: September 24, 2020
Article
SS Emperor: Construction
Lake Superior Maritime Museum
Construction
When the steel bulk freighter Emperor was launched on December 17, 1910 (Port Arthur Daily News, April 8, 1911), it was the largest ship ever built in Canada (Duluth News Tribune, April 9, 1911). It was built as hull number 28 by the Collingwood Shipbuilding Co. of Collingwood, Ontario, for James Playfair's company, the Inland Lines Ltd. of Midland, Ontario. Playfair would eventually build up a substantial fleet of Lakes carriers, and Emperor was his first large vessel. Evidently Playfair had a penchant for giving his ships names that related to royalty, for in later years he would own vessels with names like Empress of Midland, Empress of Fort William and Midland King (Greenwood 1978:53).
The length of Emperor was 525 feet, breadth 56.1 feet, and depth 27 feet. Molded depth was 31 feet and the draft could go as deep as 27 feet. The gross tonnage was 7,031 and the registered tonnage was 4,641. The original registry number assigned to the vessel at its home port of Midland was 126654. The Transcript of Register states Emperor had one deck, two masts, was schooner-rigged with a plumb bow and elliptical stern.
The new ship was built of steel and designed on the arch-and-web frame system of construction to create an unobstructed cargo hold under the 30 hatches. Each of the hatches was 9x36 feet wide and placed on 12-foot centers. There was an ore chute at each hatchway (Railway and Marine World, Jan. 1911:89). The ship had 11 bulkheads; the engine room was 67 feet long.
Emperor was powered by an inverted, triple-expansion steam engine built by the Collingwood Shipbuilding Company. The engine had cylinders of 23, 38.5 and 63 inches on a 42-inch stroke, and received steam at 180 pounds of pressure from two Scotch boilers 15.5 feet in diameter and 12 feet in length. The engine produced an indicated horsepower of 1,500 ("Transcript of Register") at 82 revolutions per minute. Registered nominal speed was 10 knots. By the time the vessel sank, its normal speed loaded was 11 knots.