Talk:Robert C. Pringle/GA1

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Nominator: Saltymagnolia (talk · contribs) 17:45, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: Epicgenius (talk · contribs) 15:33, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Hi Saltymagnolia, I'll take this review. Epicgenius (talk) 15:33, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
It is reasonably well written. a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists): It is factually accurate and verifiable. a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism): It is broad in its coverage. a (major aspects): b (focused): It follows the neutral point of view policy. Fair representation without bias: It is stable. No edit wars, etc.: It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate. a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall: Pass/Fail:
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Prose, POV, and coverage

Lead

• In general, this article is short enough that I think the four lead paragraphs can be consolidated into two. However, the lead length is fine per MOS:LEADLENGTH.
• Para 1: "Robert C. Pringle, originally named Chequamegon, was a wooden-hulled American tugboat that sank without loss of life on Lake Michigan, near Sheboygan, Wisconsin, on June 19, 1922, after striking an obstruction, possibly floating driftwood." - This sentence is a bit long. Maybe split it into two sentences?
• Para 2: "She was built for the newly formed Chequamegon Bay Transportation Company of Ashland, Wisconsin, under whom she hauled freight between Ashland, Bayfield, Washburn and Madeline Island." - Usually "whom" is used for people, so maybe you can instead use "under which".
• Para 2: "Between 1904 and 1918, she was sold multiple times, and was renamed Pere Marquette 7 in 1911" - For parallelism, I suggest "She was sold multiple times between 1904 and 1918, and was renamed Pere Marquette 7 in 1911."
• Para 3: "and began taking on water fast." - I suggest "rapidly", rather than "fast", as more formal and encyclopedic in tone.
• Para 3: "All of the crewmen were delivered safely to Manitowoc." - No need for "of the" here. "All crewmen were delivered safely to Manitowoc" is concise and says exactly the same thing.
• Para 4: The body doesn't say summer 2019, though this should probably be changed anyway per MOS:SEASON.
• Para 4: "the Wisconsin Historical Society, who described the wreck as "remarkably intact"." - I would say "which" rather than "who" for a similar reason to what I mentioned above for "...under whom she hauled freight...".

• Y All done.

Design and construction

• Para 1: "Robert C. Pringle (Official number 127764) was built as Chequamegon in 1903, by the Manitowoc Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company" - The comma after the year is unnecessary
• Para 1: "The first vessel built by the newly established shipyard, she was launched at 3:06 p.m. on May 9, 1903, as hull number #1." - "hull number #1" is redundant; it should be "hull number 1" or "hull #1".
• Para 1: "Chequamegon's wooden hull was 101 feet (30.8 m) in length, 22.33 feet (6.8 m) (or 22.4 feet, 6.8 m) wide, and 9.50 feet (2.90 m) (or 9.6 feet, 2.9 m) deep." - Given the measurements are almost identical, maybe something like Chequamegon's wooden hull was 101 feet (30.8 m) in length, 22.33 or 22.4 feet (6.81 or 6.83 m) wide, and 9.50 or 9.60 feet (2.90 or 2.93 m) deep. might work. Either that, or the parenthetical should be explained - why is one measurement in parentheses and the other not?
• Para 2: "A single 10.5-by-11-foot (3.2 by 3.4 m) 175 pounds per square inch (1,210 kPa) Scotch marine boiler supplied the engine with steam." - To avoid juxtaposing different units of measurement, I suggest "A single 10.5-by-11-foot (3.2 by 3.4 m) Scotch marine boiler, rated at 175 pounds per square inch (1,210 kPa), supplied the engine with steam."
• Para 2: "The engine was manufactured in Montague, Michigan, by the Montague Iron Works, while her boiler was manufactured in Ferrysburg, Michigan, by the Johnson Brothers Company." - Since there is no contrast being made here, I suggest replacing "while" with "and".
• Do we know the vessel's capacity, if that's relevant?

• Y All done, including the addition of the initial passenger capacity.

Service history:

• Para 1: " Ashland, Wisconsin, Bayfield, Wisconsin, Washburn, Wisconsin and Madeline Island" - Since Wisconsin is not an individual town in the list, I normally would suggest separating each town with semicolons, e.g. "Ashland, Wisconsin; Bayfield, Wisconsin; Washburn, Wisconsin; and Madeline Island". As all of these are in Wisconsin, I'd remove the state and just mention Wisconsin at the end, e.g. "Ashland, Bayfield, Washburn and Madeline Island, all in Wisconsin".
• Para 1: "She was issued a temporary enrollment on June 13, 1903, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and on June 23, she was issued a permanent enrollment at Marquette, Michigan." - For conciseness and parallelism, I suggest "She was issued a temporary enrollment on June 13, 1903, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and a permanent enrollment on June 23 at Marquette, Michigan."
• Para 1: "In the middle of September, her trips to Madeline Island were discontinued, and she was moved to Duluth, Minnesota, where she was fitted with a new propeller in order to improve her speed. " - "In order" is unnecessary.
• Para 1: "Scheduled to be moved to Milwaukee in 1904, she made her final trip on May 21, 1904, between Ashland and Washburn, arriving in Milwaukee the day after her final trip." - The second "1904" is unnecessary.
• Para 1: "When Louis A. Cartier, president of the Chequamegon Bay Transportation Company moved to Ludington, Michigan," - A comma is needed after "company", since president of the Chequamegon Bay Transportation Company is a parenthesis (rhetoric).
• Para 1: "In June of that same year" - "Same" is unnecessary when talking about something "that year". In fact, you can just say "That June".
• Para 1: "In that same year, she was taken to Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, where she received a new 9.5 feet (2.9 m) propeller, built by H.G. Trout & Company of Buffalo, New York." - "Same" is unnecessary. "9.5 feet" should be changed to "9.5-foot"; you can do this by adding |adj=on to {{convert}}.
• Para 1: "On August 18, 1909, Chequamegon's cook, Sanford M. Silver drowned" - A comma is needed after "Silver", since his name is a parenthesis (rhetoric).
• Para 2: "In 1911, Chequamegon was sold to the Pere Marquette Line of Steamers. Her name was changed to Pere Marquette 7 on January 30." - For concision, I suggest "In 1911, the Chequamegon was sold to the Pere Marquette Line of Steamers and was renamed Pere Marquette 7 on January 30."
• Para 2: "She was converted to a tugboat in Sandusky, Ohio, and had her home port changed to Fairport, Ohio. She towed barges in the Lake Erie coal trade. " - If these two are related, I suggest combining the sentences.

• Y All done.

• On a side note, that is a lot of ownership changes for such a short-lived vessel.

• This was somewhat of a common occurrence among smaller, particularly wooden vessels on the Great Lakes. Seldom have I encountered examples of larger (300+ foot) steel vessels being sold more than three times.

Final voyage:

• "As Venezuela required significant repairs, Robert C. Pringle was dispatched to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in order to tow Venezuela" - "In order" is unnecessary.
• "At around 2:00 a.m. on the following day, as Robert C. Pringle and Venezuela were passing Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Robert C. Pringle struck an obstruction (possibly floating driftwood), and began taking on water fast." - I suggest "rapidly" instead of "fast" per the above.
• "She sank in ten minutes, with all her crew being rescued by Venezuela, who dropped her crew off in Milwaukee." - I'd change "who" to "which" per the above.
• "After she sank, there was speculation that Robert C. Pringle sank because of a weakness in her hull due to her age." - Is there a way to avoid repeating "sink"?

• Y All done.

Robert C. Pringle wreck

• "Wisconsin Historical Society" is linked twice.
• "Her pilothouse, along with the glass in four of its windows, remains in place." - Was the glass in the pilothouse (I'm assuming so because it doesn't use the pronoun "her" like the ship does)? If so, I suggest "Her pilothouse, including the glass in four of its windows, remains in place."
• "Robert C. Pringle's triple expansion engine still has gold lettering on it." - I suggest "The Robert C. Pringle's triple expansion engine still retains gold lettering."
• Can the NRHP listing from 2020 be mentioned? It's in the infobox but never elaborated upon in the body.

– Epicgenius (talk) 19:12, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

• Y All done.

References

@Saltymagnolia, before I do the spot check, I noticed that much of the article is cited to a single source:

• Wisconsin Historical Society (2020). "Significance Through Obscurity: An Agglomeration of Wisconsin's Submerged Archaeological Sites" (PDF). Madison, Wisconsin: Wisconsin Historical Society. Retrieved January 6, 2021.

This could be okay if this is the only source available for the topic, but I wanted to verify that is the case.

Spot checks, with ref numbers as of this revision:

• Ref 3 (Wisconsin Historical Society (2020), p. 20.) - Checks out.
• Ref 6 (Alpena County George N. Fletcher Public Library (2020). "Chequamegon (1903, Excursion Vessel)". Alpena, Michigan: Alpena County George N. Fletcher Public Library. Retrieved January 6, 2021.) - Checks out.
• Ref 8 (Wisconsin Historical Society (2020), p. 21.) - Checks out.
• Ref 15 (Wisconsin Historical Society (2020), p. 28.) - Checks out.
• Ref 18 (Wisconsin Historical Society (2020), p. 33.) - Checks out.

– Epicgenius (talk) 18:03, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

• The actual WHS document references multiple primary sources. While they could theoretically be included in the article, they would create unnecessary bloat. ✦ Saltymagnolia ✦ 14:44, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Images and copyright

• The single image is appropriately licensed.
• https://copyvios.toolforge.org/?lang=en&project=wikipedia&oldid=1306549385&action=compare&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wisconsinshipwrecks.org%2FVessel%2FDetails%2F534%3Fregion%3DIndex Earwig] does detect a bit of a match with the sentence "In 1918, Pere Marquette 7 was sold to the Pringle Barge Line of Cleveland, Ohio."

However, upon a second look, I did see an instance of close paraphrasing:

Caption text

Article text	Original source text	Source cited
Robert C. Pringle was dispatched to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in order to tow Venezuela to Sandusky, Ohio, where the repairs were scheduled to be made. The vessels departed Milwaukee at around midnight on June 18, with Robert C. Pringle under the command of Captain Martin Oglesbee. At around 2:00 a.m. on the following day, as Robert C. Pringle and Venezuela were passing Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Robert C. Pringle struck an obstruction (possibly floating driftwood), and began taking on water fast.	Robert C. Pringle was sent to Milwaukee to tow the vessel to Sandusky where extensive repairs were to be made. The tug and its tow departed Milwaukee on the night of 18 June. As they passed Sheboygan around 2 AM, the tug struck an obstruction (some reports specified floating driftwood) and filled rapidly.	Wisconsin Historical Society (2020), p. 33.

This should be fixed. – Epicgenius (talk) 18:12, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

@Epicgenius: that should be everything. ✦ Saltymagnolia ✦ 14:44, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Great. I'll take another look tomorrow or Monday. Epicgenius (talk) 15:57, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

@Epicgenius could you please take a look? ✦ Saltymagnolia ✦ 10:53, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

I will get around to it when I can. I apologize for the delay, I was at the WikiConference this weekend and couldn't do much. Epicgenius (talk) 11:04, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

I did not find any other issues on a second look. Passing. Epicgenius (talk) 17:37, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.