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MCP Boat Blog is a presentation of the Mason County Historical Society’s Port of Ludington Maritime Museum, ludingtonmaritimemuseum.org, located at 217 S. Lakeshore Dr., Ludington.
Documenting west Michigan’s commercial and recreational maritime industry.
By Rob Alway, Editor-in-Chief
Wednesday, May 14, 2025
LUDINGTON — I’ve been trying to catch the Spartan/Spartan II tug/barge for the past month. The Marine Traffic app said it was scheduled to arrive in Ludington at 10 a.m. I made it to Loomis Street Boat Ramps right on time, but there was no vessel in sight — of course, there wasn’t much in sight beyond the lighthouse with a slight fog rolling in following the rain. The app showed the vessel still off of Big Sable Point, but I find the app isn’t always 100 percent accurate, as it doesn’t report minute-by-minute updates. I decided to get some other work done and to come back in about 45 minutes.
Sure enough, just as I was pulling up the Spartan/Spartan II was passing through the pier heads. I was cutting it close but was able to get the drone up and capture some nice pictures of it with the lighthouse in the background. I then proceeded with creating a variety of images of it coming into the channel and entering Pere Marquette Lake.
I then drove over to Copeyan Park for the next batch of shots, getting the tug/barge turning around in Pere Marquette Lake as it neared its destination, Occidental Chemical (OxyChem) in the Fourth Ward.
The tug/barge combination owned by Occidental Chemical and is used to transport calcium chloride out of the Ludington OxyChem plant.
The Spartan tug was built by Burton Shipyard, Port Arthur, Texas in 1969. It was called originally called the Lead Horse until 1973 when its name was changed to Gulf Challenger. In 1980, it was rechristened as the Challenger. From 1993 to 2010 it was called the Mark Hannah.
The Spartan is 121-feet long with a breadth of 31-feet and a depth of 10-feet. It operates on twin screws with 3,200 horsepower.
The Spartan II barge was built by Bay Shipbuilding, Sturgeon Bay, Wis. in 1980. It was called the Hannah 6301 until 2010. It is 407-feet long with a breadth of 60-feet and a depth of 21-feet. It is a double-hulled liquid barge that has a full capacity of 10,000 short tons. It typically hauls calcium chloride out of the Ludington OxyChem plant. It is equipped with three diesel pumps for offloading liquid cargo.
Both the tug and barge were purchased by Occidental Chemical in 2009 and the names were changed in 2010. The tug/barge is operated by Andrie, Inc. of Muskegon for OxyChem.
More photos can be seen on the MCP Instagram page and even more exclusively to subscribers (see information below).
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