Detroit — They’ve been doing this work for almost 50 years now — pushing the mammoth freighters on the Detroit River into port, towing them out and occasionally breaking the ice ahead of them. But the Gaelic Tugboat Co. has rarely seen a year like it endured in 2009.

Along with the entire shipping industry, the family-owned, Detroit-based operation has been strangled by the stagnant national economy. Tough times mean fewer operations and projects requiring the iron ore, limestone and coal that make up the bulk of what is shipped on the lakes.

And without that demand, the big ships spent far less time on the lakes this year — a trickle-down situation felt by the major shipping companies at the top, and smaller, peripheral operations like Gaelic.

“This is the worst year we’ve ever seen,” said Steve Carrothers, whose father-in-law started Gaelic in the 1960s. “If I had to guess, I’d say our business is down by about 50 percent or so.”

All over the Great Lakes states, the story was the same. Ships that normally spend March through December moving from port to port worked only part of the season. Some never made it out at all. Through the end of November, Great Lakes shipping moved 60.35 million tons of materials in 2009. During the same period in 2008, the industry moved 95.18 million tons.

That’s a loss of almost 35 percent in one year.

When the Soo Locks opened at the end of March — the beginning of the shipping year — there was no rush onto the lakes as in most years. The outlook for 2009 was already so bleak, many ships remained in port.

For some, that call to come out never came.

“We had two ships that didn’t sail at all this year,” said Mark Barker, president of the Interlake Steamship Co. “We had ships that tied up for part of the year before, as recently as back in 2003. But I would say this is the worst year for the industry since the early 1980s.”

The companies that own the ships, as well as the men and women who crew them, have been hard hit. But the impacts don’t stop there. They reach to companies like Gaelic and beyond.

Shipping touches roughly 236,000 jobs in various industries around the region, according to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study. Of those:
• 44,000 are based in maritime transportation.
• 54,000 are in the mining industry.
• 138,000 are in the steel industry.

Vessel agents are responsible for tackling the needs of ships and crew members when in port. In a letter posted on the Web site of the United States Great Lakes Shipping Association — which represents the agents — executive director Stuart Theis laid out the industry’s grim situation.

“We all know that from the standpoint of total ship calls handled by member agents, the 2009 navigation season will be the lowest since records were kept, as far as I can determine,” Theis wrote.

“Looking at prospects for 2010, while it may be too early to predict with complete accuracy, there is nothing that currently appears to indicate that a turnaround is near, nor does there appear to be a change in some of the conditions which may be contributing to these dismal numbers.”

Icebreaker comes late
It might be a sign that the shipping industry is truly snake-bitten these days, but the timing of the economic downturn is somewhat ironic. For years, shipping officials have bemoaned the shortage of icebreaking ships on the Great Lakes.

The dearth of boats to cut through the ice pack in late December and early January has shortened the shipping season and forced freighters into lay up earlier than their owners might want.

Late last month, however, the U.S. Coast Guard responded to years of lobbying by sending the 140-foot cutter Penobscot Bay from its home port in New Jersey to the Great Lakes for the winter season. It will join the region’s eight other icebreakers.

Only there aren’t nearly as many freighters on the water at the end of this season as in past years.
“We had seven total ships that never even sailed this year,” said Glen Nekvasil, vice president of corporate communications for the Lake Carriers’ Association, an industry group.

In another odd twist, the industry has been hampered since 2000 by six years of declining lake levels.
Each lost inch of water cut into the amount of materials ships could carry.

But this month, the lakes are back to within an inch or two of their historic averages. And with no demand for materials right now, shipping companies are unable to capitalize.

A note of optimism
“Next year, if the steel mills are operating at 96 percent of capacity, the full slate of ships will be going out again,” Nekvasil said.

“If the construction industry gets ramped up and boosted by federal stimulus dollars, the ships moving limestone will fit out and sail from April through the end of the year. But you can’t haul limestone the customer doesn’t need.”