When researchers at the University of Notre Dame sought specimens of the exotic Eurasian ruffe the summer of 1997, the University of Wisconsin-Superior’s (UWS) Research Vessel (R/V) L.L. Smith Jr. assumed the primary role in their quest.

Skipper Chris Little takes up the story: “We dragged trawl nets in St. Louis Bay and took literally hundreds of ruffe on the trip. I was really surprised how many there were.”

But while that assignment was memorable for the skipper, it was only one of scores of educational or research-oriented voyages the Smith made last year and schedules each sailing season. And while the jaunty little boat’s senior years are devoted to education and research, its youth was spent in far less serious pursuits.

In that post-World War II era that is now increasingly only legend to current Lake Superior residents, Henry R. Knudsen of Knudsen Brothers (now Fraser) Shipyard in Superior, Wisconsin, had a boat built to the specifications of a harbor work boat. Named for him, it was used as a “party boat” to entertain friends and business contacts on the waters of the Duluth-Superior Harbor and the waters of the big lake just beyond.

With the reassuring rumble of its five cylinder B-Series Kahlenberg diesel engine keeping it company, the H.R. Knudsen became a familiar sight to area residents, tootling about its “monkey business” under Henry’s paternal watch from the time of its christening in 1950 until the Knudsen family sold the shipyard in 1954.

This B5 Kahlenberg engine may the last in operation.

When the boat passed to the new owner of the shipyard, it was renamed the M.E. Kingsbury and  earned its keep for a couple of decades before being acquired in 1984 by the University of Wisconsin-Superior as a vessel to support aquatic research. Again, the little boat found itself with a new name, the L.L. Smith Jr., for Dr. Lloyd Smith, a fisheries biologist with the University of Minnesota who devoted years of study to the Lake Superior fisheries. 

Through the years, the Smith has proven to be a good platform on which to do research and educational programs, but keeping an original WW II-era boat in working order takes an inordinate amount of manpower, perseverance and ingenuity. It actually ended up in mothballs for a period of the 1980s. In about 1989, an agreement between UWS and the Lake Superior Center (now the Great Lakes Aquarium) got it back in operation. Still, as a conversation with Chris Little and engineer specialist Bob Bruce quickly attests, the boat, and especially the classic engine, requires constant attention.

“To my knowledge, the Smith may have the last operating B5 Kahlenberg engine,” Bob says. “Last fall, we heard that the company still had an inventory of parts for B5 engines in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, and quickly made plans to visit the plant to see what we could pick up.”

That visit yielded not only parts that have already proven to be invaluable in keeping the L.L. Smith Jr. humming, but they also located some of the parts missing from the A4 Kahlenberg engine on display in the Army Corps of Engineers’ Lake Superior Maritime Visitors Center in Duluth’s Canal Park.

For the uninitiated, Kahlenberg engines were once a standard power plant for most of the fish tugs, harbor craft, excursion boats, larger pleasure craft and other work boats used around the big lake. Through years of outstanding performance, the engines proved themselves worthy competitors of engines like Detroit Diesel that have since replaced them. 

Elderhostel participants learn some Lake Superior science on R/V L.L. Smith Jr. 

“The Kahlenberg B5 engine was pretty simple and friendly for the users,” Bob says. “We can easily fabricate a lot of things, like the Babbitt bearings, just by having them poured, but their simplicity also means that they require more manpower than more modern engines - things like oiling moving parts or manually adjusting the flow of cooling water based on the readings of a temperature gauge.”

Bob says the Kahlenberg family attempted to modernize their engine design and created an E-Series engine to compete with Detroit and other makes of diesels, but that the E-Series had only four engines built, the last two of which are being removed from the U.S. Park Service’s Isle Royale ferry Ranger III at the end of this season.

Despite its age and the history of its engine, the L.L. Smith continues to be a workhorse for its owner, hosting dozens of groups each year, from pure researchers to school kids learning rudimentary lessons in environmental issues. In addition to research and science tours, the boat is used to host tours for civic clubs, special interest groups and other groups interested in ecology, local water science and other topics lending themselves to being on the water.