High winds delay unloading of DAVIKEN

Unloading of the DAVIKEN, which began at 0700 this morning, was delayed later Tuesday due to high winds. The dock crews will try again on Wednesday to unload the vessel so she can depart for Windsor, Ontario.

DAVIKEN is loaded with about 23,500 tons of steel products and project cargo on this inland voyage, about 700 of which will be deposited at the Mountfort Terminal. This cargo, bound for the Accuride plant in Erie, consists of press parts manufactured by Schuler SMG in Waghäusel, Germany and loaded onto the DAVIKEN in Antwerp, Belgium as part of Fednav's FALLine (Federal Atlantic Lakes Line) Service to the Great Lakes. This cargo represents part of Accuride's $25 million investment in its aluminum wheel business.

Erie is not a regularly scheduled stop for the Fednav vessels, so this call is an unusual one for the DAVIKEN.

Of note, the DAVIKEN's near-sistership and fleetmate SANDVIKEN visited Erie twice in 1992 while named PETKA. On her first visit that year, July 29, 1992, the PETKA ran aground in Presque Isle Bay while turning to dock at the Codan Corporation (now the Mountfort Terminal).

The DAVIKEN, ironically enough, arrived in Erie 15 years later, to the day, she arrived as MALINSKA. Her last visit came November 26, 1992 when MALINSKA docked at Codan.

Fednav's FALLine is quickly wrapping up its 48th season of Great Lakes service with the scheduled November 30 sailing of the FEDERAL WESER from Bremen, Germany for Hamilton, Ontario with nearly 21,000 tons of steel products.

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DAVIKEN at dock on Tuesday morning.


Part of the DAVIKEN's cargo on the dock in Antwerp. Photo (and much of the information in this report) courtesy of Fednav's FALLine team.


Another view of the cargo.