Topic starter
05/04/2009 2:35 am
Hello all, despite the economy our sales for the 2009 summer season have been better then the past two years, with that I'm glade to say we are going to be starting cruising in early may! She'll be rolling down the railroad tracks and into Chautauqua Lake soon, and shortly after the boiler will be fired up, whistle tested of course, and with a few valves, levers, and the sound of the engineers bells, away we paddle!
Look forward to seeing you folks all back onboard with us again!
05/04/2009 4:40 pm
And yet another steamboat defies the odds. Great news! Any more out there?
05/04/2009 6:05 pm
Good to know that, Mat!! I have always wanted to come out and see your operation, and maybe if I get some time away from Lake George this summer, I will be able to do that. As a response to the question, our steamboat Minne Ha Ha will be running again this summer. 7 one-hour cruises a day, every day for at least all of July and August. In an additional note, I'll be doing some calliope maintenance work this spring: painting the manifold, tuning the whistles, and polishing them too. It needs to be done and what better time than now. With so many calliopes going silent, may as well get one lookin and soundin good again!
Topic starter
05/04/2009 6:27 pm
Matthew Dow;16455 wrote: Good to know that, Mat!! I have always wanted to come out and see your operation, and maybe if I get some time away from Lake George this summer, I will be able to do that. As a response to the question, our steamboat Minne Ha Ha will be running again this summer. 7 one-hour cruises a day, every day for at least all of July and August. In an additional note, I'll be doing some calliope maintenance work this spring: painting the manifold, tuning the whistles, and polishing them too. It needs to be done and what better time than now. With so many calliopes going silent, may as well get one lookin and soundin good again!
Would be glade to have you onboard, unfortunately NY Maritime has there SST in the spring so I will be mia after we slide the Belle down in the water for a month or so. But yeah I came out last summer to ride onboard the Minne, great time and gave me a whole new world of ideas! Hopefully you'll be able to come on out an visit us, we have done a lot of renovation this winter and spring, I just wish I could get her old calliope back!
05/04/2009 10:41 pm
What did happen to her old calliope??
Topic starter
05/04/2009 11:13 pm
Matthew Dow;16464 wrote: What did happen to her old calliope??
What I've been able to piece together is the calliope was onboard for only two or three seasons, and then it was taken off for one reason or another and sent to a marine museum in Kingston Ontario; I've tried to track it down there but never got anywhere. I've talked to Dave Morecraft a bit about having a new unit built, but between college and having owned the business for only two years now, it's a pretty big check to write. When all are you heading back to Lake George from school?
05/04/2009 11:15 pm
Matt,
Last I heard it was removed because it sapped the boats motive power. The calliope was not original to the boat. It was added around 1979 or so and was advertised in the Waterways Journal for sale in the fall of 1982. Seems the instrument was 44-notes and took up more than half of the back of the Texas Roof of the boat.
Did I hear that Clovis Watkins of Kitch Greenhouses built it, or is that a confusion of time in my brain?
I don't know who bought it...where it went, or how. I had thought the calliope was the GETZ calliope ( Mechanical Music Digest - Pictures ) but was later corrected for that assumption. It would be interesting to find out more about it.
Perhaps Mathew knows a little more about where it went or who bought it.
Travis
Topic starter
05/04/2009 11:33 pm
Travis Vasconcelos;16466 wrote: Matt,
Last I heard it was removed because it sapped the boats motive power. The calliope was not original to the boat. It was added around 1979 or so and was advertised in the Waterways Journal for sale in the fall of 1982. Seems the instrument was 44-notes and took up more than half of the back of the Texas Roof of the boat.
Did I hear that Clovis Watkins of Kitch Greenhouses built it, or is that a confusion of time in my brain?
I don't know who bought it...where it went, or how. I had thought the calliope was the GETZ calliope ( Mechanical Music Digest - Pictures ) but was later corrected for that assumption. It would be interesting to find out more about it.
Perhaps Mathew knows a little more about where it went or who bought it.
Travis
Travis, I know it was within the first few years of operations I'm just not sure exactly, I have a postcard that shows the beautiful instrument when it was installed... I can't imagine it was because lack of power, we have a 100HP boiler onboard and our engines are only around 12HP each, so our boiler is barely ever running being a fire-tube unit, and able to replenish the large reservoir of steam by residual heat. The story I got from previous engineers is that since the vessel had always been handled by a non-for-profit before me, a lot of the items that were onboard originally went for "maintenance" over the winter and never returned. Here is the post card with the unit installed on the Belle.
06/04/2009 12:52 am
Travis ;;
I played that Kitch greenhouse CaLLiope down in Brookville,In ,,we were in the same parade togather,,...
Matt ,
ILL post your website here also...
06/04/2009 2:04 pm
Mat, I head back to Lake George after my last final on the 29th of this month. Wow, that is a big calliope for a boat that size!! Was it played by hand or by a tape player?
10/04/2009 10:05 pm
Mathew,
All of us, here at the Rabbit Hash (KY) Shipyard, are impressed with what you are doing and what you have accomplished with that old steamboat of your's. Seems like you have your bases covered. Good luck and keep on steamin'.