Topic starter
17/12/2008 5:14 pm
Here is another episode of the irregularly-running series, What Is It? This is the same item on two different steamboats.
What is it?
For the Fred Way Jr. Excellence in Allthingssteamboaty Award, name the boats in each picture!
17/12/2008 5:44 pm
As a guess out of my ignorance, I would say a bow or stern thruster. The left picture is obviously an add on to an older boat.
17/12/2008 6:21 pm
Hank, I would say you are right...the one on the left IS a stern thruster, and I'm guessing the one on the right is a bow thruster being as it's in a tunnel. As to what boat, I don't know. I do know the DQ has a stern thruster, but I've never seen it.
Topic starter
17/12/2008 6:59 pm
Since I never saw the first one, I can only go by how the picture is labeled, and Ralph DuPae had it as a bowthruster on the ALBATROSS. The second one is one end of the NATCHEZ' bowthruster, seen up close and personal in the 1987 drydocking. Here is another shot of it.
Now, as to the first one: I'm wondering if this was on the ALBATROSS at all, or if it was added as the ADMIRAL? When were thrusters first installed on the rivers?
18/12/2008 4:08 pm
Before you ask: I do not know when thrusters were introduced.
18/12/2008 6:25 pm
Alan Bates;14808 wrote: Before you ask: I do not know when thrusters were introduced.
I always heard it was one of those new thechnolgies that sprung up during World War 2...
They 1st appeared on the Great lakes in the early 1960's