Here's an aerial picture of the Bay Shipbuilding yard in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin in probably summer of 1977. The M/V Belle River, a 1000 ft. coal self-unloader is being constructed in the foreground. Boats that size are built in sections, launched and then the sections are joined together.
The yard was in its heyday at that time, building a series of 1000 ft lake freighters through the seventies and early eighties. Business dropped off substantially in the late eighties but the yard stayed in business building tugboats, ferries and the like over the following decades.
Bay Shipbuilding is still in operation today as a subsidiarity of Fincantieri Marine Group. A large freighter, the 639 ft.MV Mark W. Barker was launched in 2021.
The company website site shows a photo from a different angle but the yard doesn't look that different today.
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| Jacques Lesstrang, Lake Carriers, Superior Publishing, 1977 |
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