Topic starter
10/07/2012 3:44 am
Wesley Paulson;30232 wrote: Reminds me of that great quote about bridge clearance in Long Live the Delta Queen: "You could put a dollar bill in between, but a five dollar bill wouldn't fit."
Maybe Judy or someone else can give the citation for the quote and the full story behind it?
Wesley
That was said on the 1950 Mardi Gras trip, which was following a flood crest from Cincinnati. You have to remember that the Mardi Gras trip was the first of the season, a 21+day trip, and was vital to the financial coffers of the company. As they proceeded downriver they kept recalculating the clearance of the Cairo Highway Bridge, which was their last obstacle on the trip (so they thought). If they couldn't make it under that bridge, the trip was doomed, and so likely the company. They made all preparations possible: bending back the stack, filling all the tanks, etc. They decided to back the boat down through the bridge because they would have better control against the current. They inched their way back and forth for about 20 minutes. As soon as they cleared the pilothouse, the mate stationed up there with a measuring stick shouted: "I could get a dollar bill between the pilothouse and the bridge, but a five dollar bill would never have made it." They adjourned to the dining room where Capt. Tom Greene played The Saints on the piano in celebration.
While they had no other vertical clearance problems on the trip, they knew the Greenville Bridge would be treacherous in the swift current, and clearing it was made really treacherous as the tiller line broke just above the bridge and sent the DQ through the span sideways, but safely.
As Wesley noted, this was in Letha Greene's Long Live the Delta Queen Chapter 7, pp. 45-50.
Does anyone know who the mate was?