Belly Acres - RC Boats

Martha E. Allen

The Martha E. Allen was a steel hulled tankship in the common Great Lakes configuration, built in 1928 by American Ship Building Company in Lorain, Ohio. Hull number 803. Official number 227895. The forward housing contains the navigation bridge, deck officer and unlicensed deck personnel crew quarters. The remainder of the crew are quartered aft over the machinery space and surrounding recreational and messing areas. The vessel is divided by transverse bulkheads into five cargo tanks numbered from forward to aft. All tanks are subdivided into port wing, starboard wing and center compartments by two longitudinal bulkheads. Primary cargo carried is bulk gasoline and kerosene to ports around the Great Lakes including Green Bay, Port Washington, Cleveland, Chicago, Tonawanda, Ogdensburg, Buffalo, Duluth, Gary and Detroit. Winter lay ups were at Bay Ship Building in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.

Length: 334 feet Width: 51.16 feet Depth: 18.75 feet Gross Tonnage: 2935 tons Net Tonnage: 1994 tons Power plant: 3200 HP Diesel

Owned by Lake Tankers Corp. from 1928 to 1958, National Marine Service Inc. from 1958 to 1967 and Cleveland Tankers Inc. from 1967 [when she was renamed the Venus] until 1975.

She went through several modifications including adding flight deck railings and side ladder to the pilot house in 1942 and 1943, the addition of a raised catwalk from the forecastle to the poop deck, re-powered in 1954 along with the relocation of the aft deck crane, change in main funnel, removal of some ventilators and several minor modifications and a new rudder in 1958.

On September 4, 1969 the Venus sustained an explosion and fire in No. 1 center tank compartment while gas freeing operations were being conducted. One crew member was burned during the fire fighting after the explosion.

On May 4, 1972 at 12:50 am, while anchored about seven miles west of Eisenhower Lock, in the St. Lawrence Seaway, in fog, she suffered multiple explosions while cleaning tanks. Captain Stanley was killed and four crewmen were injured.

On January 12, 1973 she suffered another explosion in the engine room shortly after unloading at Kipling, MI, near Gladstone, Green Bay. One person was killed.

She was scrapped at Ashtabula, OH, on August 21, 1975.

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