James R Barker Barks for Tens of Thousands of People at Grandma’s Marathon

Every year, Duluth hosts the massive Grandma’s Marathon, which takes runners down the shoreline of Lake Superior between Two Harbors and Duluth’s Canal Park. It is a highly prestigious event in the world of running, being part of the US Olympic team’s qualifying events and attracting thousands of people from around the world. This year’s race (the 50th anniversary) brought more than 19,900 runners alone to Canal Park, not including family members and spectators. And what better ship than the James R Barker to greet those crowds? Delivering to perhaps the largest crowd of her career, Barker gave her signature “Barker Bark” salute. Built in 1976, ship is coincidentally also celebrating her 50 year anniversary. Her appearance at the height of the marathon does not appear to be incidental, originally Paul R Tregurtha was scheduled to load in Duluth two days before, while Barker was scheduled for Superior. Then unexpectedly Tregurtha and Barker switched orders, Tregurtha going to Superior, while Barker got swapped into Duluth. She was also delayed, from an initial ETA of 10am she moved back to 3pm, coincidentally the peak time for runners. I’m fairly certain it was deliberate, especially given she is the perfect ship to deliver for the event! Cheers were heard between each horn blasts, the crew and crowds all loved it! Measuring 1004ft (306m) and capable of carrying 63,300 tons of cargo, James R Barker was the last ship to simultaneously hold freshwater world records for both length and carrying capacity. Today she is still in a 5-way tie for second in length, but there are many ships far above her in capacity. Interestingly, she was originally designed with a forward mounted superstructure, which was changed shortly before construction. She’s had a rather undramatic career by laker standards, her largest incident was a small fire in 1986 which disabled her electrical systems. She’s had no sales or name changes, and remains mostly unaltered. In 2008 the famous bass horn was added, and her original horn was mistakenly not removed, creating an two-tone harmony that has become famous. In 2015 her twin funnels were replaced by a single, massive funnel equipped with scrubbers that give her a distinctive, smelly steam plume. As for the Marathon, I was up at 2:00am, prepping to shuttle racers to Two Harbors, one of several hundred school busses and other transports. Despite the immense logistics of tens of thousands of people spread nearly 30 miles, it went without a hitch, very impressive operation. I want to thank anyone else who helped out and for all the racers, amazing experience for everyone involved hopefully and hoping you all achieved what you set out to accomplish! Enjoy!