Champion (Great Lakes Tug)

Type

Tugboat

Period

19th Century

Nation

United States

Overview: Champion was a wooden-hulled steam tug built in 1868 by the Campbell and Owen shipyard of Detroit, a firm known for producing wooden schooners, barges, and steam vessels for the Great Lakes trade. At launch she was reputed to be the largest tug built for fresh-water service, with officers' cabins noted as more comfortable than previously seen on Great Lakes tugs. Service History: Champion worked for decades as a Detroit-based towing vessel on the Great Lakes. Her best-known feat came in 1881, when she towed a string of eight wheat-laden schooners in a single record tow; period artwork by marine artist Seth Arca Whipple also depicted her towing eight schooners through the Detroit River in the 1870s, a subject reproduced in lithographs and postcards of the era. Notable Facts: On September 15, 1903, Champion burned to the waterline while owned by H. W. Baker of Detroit, and the small steamer Ian towed the smoldering hulk to a reef near Gibraltar, a Lake Huron shoal near Alpena, Michigan, where she sank in about 10 feet of water. Salvagers recovered much of her machinery and fittings the following year, but her hull was judged not worth repairing and was abandoned as a total loss. Modeling Notes: As a wooden-hulled, fantail-sterned Great Lakes towing steamer contemporaneous with other Campbell & Owen products such as the tug Stranger, Champion shared the general design traits of large 1860s-70s lake tugs — a deep, powerful hull, a tall single funnel, and an unusually comfortable pilothouse/officer cabin arrangement for her type. No builder's plans specific to Champion were located; the best surviving visual references are period lithographs/paintings of her towing strings of schooners, held by institutions such as the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Wisconsin Maritime Museum.