Topic starter
28/03/2011 1:42 am
Capt. Troy Delaney called from the NATCHEZ pilothouse as they overtook the MQ and her 5 tug/towboat entourage just below Algiers Point. The MQ had to wait for the traffic light - she has no priority (and no dignity) now, so she had to hold up after getting underway some 5 miles below there this evening. CURRENTLY her destination is Baton Rouge/Port Allen to the scrapyard there - no change in her fate, just her destination. Why? Why not? I'll guess it was too difficult to navigate her through the Intracoastal Waterway. When she had only 2 tugs, she was making 2 mph on the Mississippi, so presumably she'll do better with 5. IF she keeps going toward Baton Rouge, that's another 130+ miles from her current location. Time will tell... The company, whose name escapes me, that had contracted to dismantle her has sites in 7 gulf ports, including NOLA. Here again its pure conjecture on my part, but I suspect the asbestos situation requires a more deserted/protected area for the work than what was available in NOLA. Tune in tomorrow for the next chapter of the Perils of Pauline. I just wish this would end.
28/03/2011 1:49 am
Sigh. This reminds me of the long saga leading to the scrapping of SS Norway, followed by SS Independence. Norway met its end on the beach at Alang, India, but Independence suffered a broken keel and is slowly being beaten to pieces by the surf off the coast of India. Sad, indeed, when you consider how each of these ships including MQ touched the lives of so many people.
Judy and others - thanks for keeping us posted!
Wesley
Topic starter
28/03/2011 1:55 am
MQ pix underway
I just received some pix of the MQ underway tonight but can't get them posted. I'm sending them to Franz to see if he can get it done tomorrow.
28/03/2011 2:05 am
Drama = love
All the drama is a testament to the love of her.
28/03/2011 5:23 am
the pictures
here are the pictures Judy announced. Thanks, Judy, for being the reporter live and directly from the crime scene 😉
Franz
28/03/2011 11:57 am
It is so very sad to see the MISSISSIPPI QUEEN being dragged up and down the river like a condemned, exiled prisoner awaiting a stay of execution. She deserves better! After all the rampant rumors, false hopes, fantasies and fabrications, it's time for this dreadful drama to reach its inevitable conclusion and allow her to depart with dignity.
Even with a death sentence hanging over her, she is still a PROUD LADY OF THE RIVER and will rightfully take her place in the annals of steamboat history
Topic starter
28/03/2011 5:57 pm
AIS tracking
I couldn't find the MQ and entourage on the live tracking, but the JAMES L. OBERSTAR is downbound above Vacherie! What a crock.
28/03/2011 7:04 pm
Towboats and the Mississippi Queen
Keith Norrington;25210 wrote: It is so very sad to see the MISSISSIPPI QUEEN being dragged up and down the river like a condemned prisoner awaiting a stay of execution. She deserves better! After all the rampant rumors, false hopes, fantasies and fabrications, it's time for this dreadful drama to reach its inevitable conclusion and allow her to depart with dignity.
Even with a death sentence hanging over her, she is still a PROUD LADY OF THE RIVER and will rightfully take her place as a very big part of steamboat history!
So true. And so ironic. As one of the original crew, I remember how two towboats played a very important role in the very early days of the MQ.
On the maiden voyage, packed with invited dignitaries, as we approached New Orleans we lost all power (a frequent occurrence then and very frustrating when in the elevator or shower) and the boat started drifting sideways towards the Greater New Orleans Bridge pier. Just before we pulled a Titanic, a towboat shot out from the bank and caught us. I was standing next to Commodore Wagner in the pilot house as the drama unfolded. That was the moment he stated his intention to retire while he still had his reputation intact.
Then, after we got down to New Orleans and started back upriver to Cincinnati, up around Baton Rouge, I believe, we discovered one slight drawback to her design. She wouldn't keep steerage speed going upriver against the current. Kind of embarrassing considering that was the reason steamboats were invented. Anything can go downriver.
Anyway, a towboat, the Kate Tully if I remember correctly, was hurriedly hired to push us home. We were several days late arriving back in our home port of Cincinnati. We had put all the guests off in Hawesville, KY, where they were bussed to Louisville and then flown back to Cincinnati.
I stayed for the first year of operation, and when I left there were only a couple of the original crew remaining. There are a lot of stories from the Mississippi Queen, even some I can actually talk about. 😉
28/03/2011 9:31 pm
Hi, Randy...I think I remember you! Anyway, I had thought of the same thing. Not only that, but if I recall correctly, they would often have the towboat switch sides so as not to display the towboat to a passing town. On another occasion, after an extensive re-work at Todd Shipyard in NOLA, they were supposed to board pax at Beinville Street, only to miss that deadline and Fred Way and some other dignitaries were delivered to the MQ via the Steamer NATCHEZ at Todd's. Fred Way wrote something about the NATCHEZ's gracefulness alongside the crippled MQ. If I recall, later in that trip the towboat was released as she began generating enough power on her own to complete the trip.
I must admit to being one of those who never cared for the MQ in any way at all, but she does not deserve the end she has met (or is meeting). In that vein, I also remember the DELTA KING being towed around to various places in an eleventh-hour situation, only to be reborn in another incarnation. Who knows....strange things happen to steamboats.
Topic starter
28/03/2011 11:41 pm
F. Way's arrival to the MISS_Q
Fred Way wrote about that very unusual arrival to the MISS-Q, as he called her to the dismay of Betty Blake, in the Reflector. Mine are upstairs as are the indices, but it was a great read, the entire shakedown trip. Yes, I am guilty of having no love lost for the appearance of that flat ugly boat, but she is a steamboat and provided many great memories to many passengers, crews, and rivertowns over the years.( Albany, Illinois might be an exception, though!) I have to admit that the MQ crew was the friendliest and gave me free run of the boat at the shore stops here, even after the advent of Homeland Security. I have quite a few MQ CREW items given me during her 6 day 20 hour 7 minute boiler layup in Davenport in 2006, when I got to know the WalMart greeters quite well as I taxied crew up there daily, among other errands that stay. I don't remember what the malfunction du jour was back in the early 1980s on one of her UMR trips, but they had the accompaniment of a towboat and yes, it did alternate from side to side according to the location of the town on that trip too.
29/03/2011 1:36 am
Just talked to a Harbor Pilot headed N/B who said he had passed the M.Q., pushed into the bank just above Harvey Locks. Going to be a long slow trip, wherever they are headed with her. She must be on another Voyage To Nowhere?
Topic starter
29/03/2011 2:10 am
Man w66666rffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Oops, my cat Sandy just stepped on my keyboard. Anyway, this is like Man without a Country - A Boat without a Dock! I know that when she had only 2 towboats on her, she was making 2 mph upstream, but yesterday she had 5. Maybe she's going back into the Harvey Canal, although I don't think she'd be welcome at the Ingram Dock again - $$$$$$.
29/03/2011 2:39 am
I don't know what the reasons for her continued delay is, but its almost as if she's being stubborn and just doesn't want to go. Poor ole boat is fighting for at least an ounce of dignity as she goes away.
29/03/2011 2:51 am
Did they not pay the bills at Ingram dock? Surely wharfage would not be as much as 3, 4 or 5 fully found towboats...
Topic starter
29/03/2011 3:53 am
Capt. Reynolds...
as they say at the nursing home when I call the numbers: BINGO!
29/03/2011 10:56 am
Maybe they are banking on the MQ's scrap value to pay for mooring and towing fees (assuming Ingram and others would "float" the fees for a while). I don't relish the thought of the MQ's steel going to China, then coming back to us as Ginsu knives, car parts, and toys, all coated in lead paint...
29/03/2011 2:05 pm
Indie
Wesley Paulson;25206 wrote: Sigh. This reminds me of the long saga leading to the scrapping of SS Norway, followed by SS Independence. Norway met its end on the beach at Alang, India, but Independence suffered a broken keel and is slowly being beaten to pieces by the surf off the coast of India. Sad, indeed, when you consider how each of these ships including MQ touched the lives of so many people.
Judy and others - thanks for keeping us posted!
Wesley
I had my very first cruise ship experience as a pax on the Indie. To think of her fate is really sad. Nice little boat.
Paul
29/03/2011 3:14 pm
Relish this
She lives on as schlock. Aren't we a lucky people.
30/03/2011 3:23 am
Probably come back as model steam boat pencil sharpeners