Topic starter
11/12/2009 4:51 am
Recently while sitting on a swing over looking Charleston, South Carolina's harbor, pondering how nice it was to be in the warm and sunny south, I spied B.B. Riverboat's old RIVER QUEEN come puttering by. I couldn't see her new name, if any, but the faux wheelhouses and relatively high freeboard gave her identity away. Unfortunately, at an aesthetic loss, the new owners placed a roof behind the pilothouse to keep the South Carolina sun off of those sitting on the old roof. For more information check out: Charleston South Carolina tours - Boat tours around Charleston Harbor
11/12/2009 8:26 am
11/12/2009 3:02 pm
Frank,
I had wondered where she'd gone. No one at BB this summer seemed to know...other than they said she was on the Intracoastal. Interesting new name. SPIRIT OF LOWCOUNTRY. I noticed a plethora of changes to her...the boarding stage is gone, the forward mast is gone, the new roof is hiding an elevator they added to her, (If you look at the top deck on the port side in the picture on the website you can see the new mechanical room for the elevator clearly just f'wd of the faux wheelhouse), and the calliope is gone. Now I ask you, WHO in their right mind takes a calliope OFF an excursion boat? It is like taking the beak off the bird!
Sometimes people buy a boat and have a idea of what they want when they buy her. They attempt to change her purpose to fit their needs and lets face it, if she wasn't meant to be that she won't usually conform. This one is a very yachty attempt with a former paddlewhel-type excursion boat. With those gregarious faux wheelhouses she looks like a characture of what they wanted...nothing like what they were going for. If they were gonna spend all that money, why didn't they get rid of the wheelhouses?
If only boat people were in charge and not interior designers and investors!
Travis
11/12/2009 3:27 pm
Speaking of RIVER QUEEN's, where did BB's new RIVER QUEEN come from? She kinds looks like Padelford's old HARRIET BISHOP, and I see that they're no longer running her (according to their website). Is that her now in Cincinnati?
11/12/2009 3:30 pm
Yep thats her. I hadnt seen her since the late 80's. I have some video of her that Capt. Bob Reynolds gave me some years ago.
12/12/2009 11:01 pm
Matt,
The current RIVER QUEEN for BB in Cincinnati IS the HARRIET BISHOP. She was originally the MISSOURI RIVER QUEEN, then the HARRIET BISHOP. Capt. Gus Gaspardo said something to someone on the MISSISSIPPI QUEEN about her "left at Cincinnati after Tall Stacks" and how he was looking forward to flying home instead of taking her back. I was at dinner in the Officers Mess on the MQ when I heard this one. She sat at BB's landing in Newport for what seems like a year before the name change took place and she came out as the replacement for the RIVER QUEEN ( aka: RIVER QUEEN/STAR OF KNOXVILLE/STAR OF LEXINGTON/RIVER QUEEN/SPIRIT OF LOWCOUNTRY) when she was sold. It seems someone over on the PA DENNY told me the HARRIET BISHOP filled in for the BELLE OF CINCINNATI a couple of times when the latter was out of town and large groups showed up. So I guess the powers that be at BB came to favour the boat and that helped a sale go thru.
I remember when she was built at Marine Builders ship yard up at Utica, IN....all she needed was to be cut in the middle and about 30-40 feet added and she would have been quite the swan. Unfortunately, she is a little short for her width and height....strange looking if you ask me.
Travis
14/12/2009 2:21 pm
I designed the River Queen --- Spirit of Lowcountry and I resisted those "faux" paddlewheel housings every inch of the way. I lost the argument.
Architects are often blamed for owners' tastes. The fact is that architecture on land or at sea consists of three distinct factors:
90% cost;
8% violent argument; and,
2% art. The art may be reduced in favor of the other two factors as desired.
Actually, I am ashamed of some of the boats I designed and proud of others. Most fit between these extremes. One of mine that went to Florida was so bad I refuse to mention its name or tell where it can be found.
14/12/2009 3:20 pm
Cap,
You don't have to defend your designs here! As modern steamboat and steamboat-style designers go, you are the best! After all you gave us the NATCHEZ at a time we when the best others could do was the MISSISSIPPI QUEEN (need I say more?).
In our careers we all have things we are not so proud of...but, they made us who we are today.
Yeah, those faux wheelhouses on the RIVER QUEEN were gregarious if not a little pretentious. I can't help but wonder if a little sarcastic humor wasn't applied when the powers that be dictated them to you. That is how I'd like to think of them! The lights on them flashed in a sequence as if to emulate movement. One Captain who was on there in the mid-80's and I fantasized as to how to get their timing to change so they would operate in a backwards sequence. Although we had many a laugh about it, we never addressed the issue.
I had all but forgotten my brief stint over there.
When she was in Jeffersonville, IN back in the late 80's there is one more interesting story to tell about her. I will not mention names here...but, a Very High Ranking Officer (pick the rank you wish...you'll probably be right) of the BELLE OF LOUISVILLE once saw her coming out of the fog on a morning cruise on the Wednesday before the Kentucky Derby and proclaimed on the PA system..."Just behind us is the DELTA QUEEN, who will race us later this afternoon!". When the RIVER QUEEN caught up to us...I answered many questions amongst passengers!
I have often wondered how a ship/boat architect feels about what he/she has designed. Especially when that vessel has changed owners and looks. It has happened that a total dog gets out of the shipyard and several owners down the pike make a swan out of her. Normally, it is the opposite...and the result is a hideous characture of what she could/should have been.
You mention a vessel you are not too proud of. I can't help but wonder what other steamboat architects thought about some of their customer-aided "designs". What was to have been the IDLEWILD (I am talking about the original drawing, and gee arent we all glad that didn't happen!!!) wasn't very pretty. Her boiler deck was to extend over the bow, the Pilothouse was to have a Texas Cabin behind it...surely Tom Dunbar wasn't too proud of that design. Then over at Dubuque Boat and Boiler...what Capt.Dennis Trone must have thought as he penned the horrid BISCAYNE BELLE (which is now called The DUCHESS). You are in a rather elite crowd taking just those two sited examples into consideration.
LIfe on the river is always interesting...no matter what the boat looks like!
Travis
14/12/2009 4:04 pm
[QUOTE=
Architects are often blamed for owners' tastes. The fact is that architecture on land or at sea consists of three distinct factors:
90% cost;
8% violent argument; and,
2% art. The art may be reduced in favor of the other two factors as desired.
AMEN Cap!
15/12/2009 10:30 am
Travis,
Like you I thought Tom Dunbar designed the Idlewild. Lately evidence has turned up that Dunbar was in Russia, Brazil or Jeffersonville (somewhere exotic!) when the Idlewild was designed and built. T. R. Tarn designed her.
15/12/2009 10:49 am
There were two Tarns at the Rees yard for many years. T. Rees Tarn was the son of John Tarn, who worked there for over fifty years. Both were naval architects and it is possible that John Tarn may have had a hand in the design of the Idlewild. In any event, evidence indicates that Tom Dunbar was not involved.
15/12/2009 4:36 pm
If it's only 2% art, we are indeed a nation of Philistines.
15/12/2009 8:23 pm
Wow, that changes the knowledge we have of history, doesn't it? Half the fun of chasing down history is finding these interesting facts which are contrary to beliefs! I took a recent trip to a distant land exotic land...Elizabeth, IN...it cost me alot, too! I think Tom Dunbar should have stayed away from such places and designed the IDLEWILD!