It was a very cold walk into the Heated barn on Saturday. Notice that the word Heated is in CAPS. We were grateful that our furnace was operational and we were excited to get to work on our 102 year old boat. I was actually on a hunt for some spec. papers. You see we are trying to take the boat to Mound this year and I was looking for this sheet that has the boat height compared with the bridge height of a few major bridges including the Narrows bridge. I finally found it and it turns out that when the water level is average we cannot get under the bridge…. the Stack will get chopped off? Actually Our Stack telescopes down and the whistle folds down so I did a little bit of work and Surprise surprise we CAN get through the bridge it’s a squeeze but we can do it. Also I found some SOPs from 1995 (before the 1st season started in 1996). There were some humorous things. Like how to depart from the dock: “With the engine in reverse the boat, because of design will have a tendency to back to port” -that part is fine then this got me scared- “Hopefully, when backed far enough we can switch the engine to ahead and with starboard rudder it will turn away from the dock and not hit it.” That was very bold to write before they put the boat in the water and actually after the testing they made the rudder BIGGER which probably means they had doubts. I know if I had doubts I would have made the rudder bigger before testing. Oh, well that was 13 years ago and now we are preparing for our 12 successful year of operations. Hope to see you aboard the Steamboat Minnehaha!
Hi Adam! Thank you for everything you do.