BLUE WATER BELLE, her cabins freshly painted white and her trim done in a light shade of blue, made her first excursion out of Toronto on Friday, August 17th, docking across the end of the Terminal Warehouse pier. We are pleased to see her in service at last but, most of all, we are happy to hear her beautiful chime whistle echoing across the bay.

MEAFORD, since renamed PIERSON INDEPENDENT, is downbound on the Bayfield Turn, Sault Ste. Marie, in this July 27, 1975 photo by J. H. Bascom.

PIERSON INDEPENDENT, the former MEAFORD, departed Toronto via the Eastern Gap in the early evening of August 18. Some six miles out into the foggy lake, however, she suffered mechanical problems and was forced to anchor for the night. The following morning, she was towed back to pier 27, Toronto, by BAGOTVILLE and COLINETTE so that repairs might be effected. We might venture the opinion that this 73-year-old steamer looks superb in her new colours and we wonder whether the Soo River Company might not also acquire Upper Lakes Shipping's GODERICH, also a veteran of 1906, in view of the fact that the new elevator at Windsor will be operative in 1980 and the smaller steamers will no longer be required for the Toronto service.

The American Steamship Company's JOSEPH S. YOUNG (II), (a) WILPEN (27), (b) DAVID P. THOMPSON (69), has been sold to Marine Salvage Ltd. and resold to Mexican breakers. The YOUNG was scheduled to arrive in tow at Port Colborne on August 19, there to be prepared for the deep sea tow.

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