Odd Lake Superior Ship Malfunction Causes A Ruckus In Duluth
If you happened to be in earshot of Duluth's Canal Park on the morning of June 20, 2025, you undoubtedly heard something strange coming from the shipping canal.
I happened to be just a couple of blocks away from the Aerial Lift Bridge, in attendance at the Power Trip Morning Show's live event at the Social House.
Right at the end of their show, a ship sounded its horn. It was almost like a scripted ending to their show, getting a ship horn in the final moments to conclude their radio broadcast. Only it didn't stop.
After what felt like a good minute of solid, uninterrupted ship horn, people started asking if that was normal. Some of the other locals and I started explaining to visitors in the crowd, "No, that is definitely not normal".
The horn sounded for a good handful of minutes, making me wonder if something was wrong. As the ship's horn continued to blare, eventually, the Aerial Lift Bridge's horn sounded, and I could hear that the ship's horn had finally stopped once in the harbor.
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While the horn was going off, I quickly looked up on my phone what ship it was. It just so happened to be the 1,004-foot Mesabi Miner coming into Duluth from Lake Superior.
Duluth area shipping enthusiast and expert "Vibe With Mike", a personality on YouTube, happened to be on the water on that Friday morning when this whole thing happened.
He says in the video that he had no intentions of capturing anything on camera that morning. He was just out in his pontoon and enjoying the morning, watching the ship come in. When the horn didn't stop right away, he followed the Mesabi Miner in through the canal and captured video of the scene.
Mike suggested that the crew might cut the power to the air horn on the ship, since it was stuck. That is what he theorizes they did as the ship cleared the bridge and got into the harbor.
He pulled a decibel reading from his pontoon, which read over 96 decibels from his distance. Closer to the ship, it was clearly much louder than that. While the horn wasn't any louder than normal, the sheer duration caught a lot of people off guard, likely offering a uniquely Duluth wake-up call to all of the people staying at the hotels near the canal, if they weren't already awake just before 9 am that morning.
Here's the video to check out his unique perspective and information on the subject.
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Gallery Credit: Tony Hart