SS Mataafa

The Mataafa wrecked outside Duluth harbor after the storm of 28 November 1905
History
Name:	SS Mataafa
Builder:	Cleveland Shipbuilding Company
Completed:	1899
Out of service:	1965
Fate:	Wrecked 1905, raised and repaired; scrapped 1965
General characteristics
Tonnage:	4840 tons
Length:	430 feet (130 m)
Beam:	50 feet (15 m)
Depth:	25 feet (7.6 m)
Installed power:	1,800 hp
Crew:	24 in 1905

SS Mataafa was an American steamship that had a lengthy career on the Great Lakes of North America, first as a bulk carrier and later as a car carrier. She famously was wrecked in 1905 in Lake Superior just outside the harbor at Duluth, Minnesota, during a storm that was named after her. She was built as SS Pennsylvania in 1899, and was renamed Mataafa when she was purchased in the same year by Minnesota Steamship Company. After her 1905 wreck, she was raised and repaired, and served for another sixty years before being scrapped.

Built in 1899 as SS Pennsylvania by the Cleveland Shipbuilding Company, she was 430 feet (131 meters) long and had a beam of 50 feet (15.2 meters). She was rated at 4,840 gross register tons, and her engines were capable of producing 1,800 hp (1,342 Kw). Like most steel ships on the Great Lakes, her hull was made of large steel plates riveted to steel frames.

The company that built her leased her out as SS Pennsylvania for a few months, but quickly sold her to the Minnesota Steamship Company (MSC), which renamed her SS Mataafa. Her first season with the MSC was not without difficulties; she struck a rock in the Straits of Mackinac and arrived at Chicago, Illinois, with a leak, and then ran aground above the Soo Locks on her way back to Minnesota.

In 1901, she became a part of the original Pittsburgh Steamship Division of U.S. Steel when the division was formed. Due to fog, she ran grounded again, this time on Knife Island Reef in Lake Superior, on June 2, 1901.

At three-thirty in the afternoon of November 27, 1905, she was on her way out of Duluth, Minnesota, loaded with iron ore and towing the barge James Nasmyth. According to Captain Richard F. Humble, they were rounding the Apostle Islands when a nor'easter hit. After hours of fighting the storm, Humble decided to turn back to safe port in Two Harbors, Minnesota. After five more hours of struggling with the nor'easter, the ship made it back to Two Harbors, but was unable to enter the harbor due to the darkness. Her only remaining option was to try to make port at Duluth.