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JOHN ERICSSON
Great lake freighter

The John Ericsson was a whaleback Great Lakes freighter designed by Captain A. McDougall and built in Superior, Wisconsin in 1896. She was named after a friend of Captain McDougall's who was the inventor of the first screw propeller. She was designed to carry freight on the rough waters of the Great Lakes. Her hull looks somewhat like a submarine and was designed so that the decks would be awash in rough seas.

The John Ericsson ship was 396' long with a 48' beam and a draft of 21'. Displaced 3200 tons, she was a good freight hauler but not popular with all skippers because it was difficult to handle her in the wind when empty as it tended to "weathervane".

John Ericsson served for 67 years, carrying originally iron ore and then grain from the Lakehead to Sarnia. When she retired in 1963, she was the penultimate whaleback and the only one with bridge forward. Upper Lakes Shipping offered John Ericsson as a museum ship to the City of Hamilton. She was towed to a berth in Confederation Park arriving on June 7th, 1966. The necessary funding was not forthcoming and she was eventually scrapped in 1967-68.

Between 1888 and 1898, the shipyards at the western end of Lake Superior built 39 of a unique kind of steamer featuring whaleback design in which the hull curved inwards from the water line to reduce the wave resistance of the hull. The final whaleback, the Meteor, is preserved as a museum ship in Superior, Wisconsin.


We build this primarily wood model of the John Ericsson the following sizes.

24" long (1/200 scale), 33" long (1/144 scale), and 48" long (1/200 scale). Email us for prices and lead time.