US Coast Guard says ship with cracked hull likely didn’t strike anything in Lake Superior

SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich. (AP) — The U.S. Coast Guard is backing away from a weekend report that a ship may have struck something in Lake Superior before it began taking on water. Authorities now say the ship likely had a stress fracture in its hull. The ship is called the Michipicoten. It was carrying iron ore and had 22 people aboard Saturday. Half of the crew was evacuated for safety reasons while the ship was able to reach a port in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Lt. Joe Snyder of the Coast Guard says a ship striking something in open water in Lake Superior “would have been very peculiar.”