Steamboat Minnehaha Blog

{This is an article that was published in the Excelsior Sun Sailor last week Thursday Febuary 21, Written by Jared Huisenga}.

A plan to bring back Steamboat Minnehaha to Big Island Park sailed smoothly through the Orono City Council Feb. 11.

Council members voted unanimously to continue upgrading facilities at the park, including a plan to install an eight-foot by 80-foot floating dock that would give the historic steamboat a place to dock when it’s motoring passengers around Lake Minnetonka.

“One of the things we should want to do is resurrect that old stop that the Minnehaha made in the early 1900s,” he said.

The Museum of Lake Minnetonka is a non-profit organization. All proceeds from Steamboat Minnehaha fares go to operate and maintain the boat.

“We’ve been thinking about having the Minnehaha out there for some time,” Mayor Jim White said. “The dock gives us that opportunity. … We’d like to have more than one dock out there, but right now one is all we can afford.”

The Minnehaha in the 1900s was one of six streetcar-style steamboats that transported lake-area residents from place to place, visitors to the amusement park on Big Island, and provided lake tours.

Deemed irrelevant in 1926 by advances in automobiles, the Minnehaha was filled with debris from the amusement park - which had been torn down - filled with water and allowed to sink. In 1979, though, the ship was rediscovered and salvaged from the lake. In 1996, the refurbished boat set forth on its inaugural voyage from Excelsior to Wayzata.

After discussion arose last summer about the possibility of a dock on Big Island, Murphy said, he and other museum board members and the ship’s crew made a trip to the bay to determine if a dock would be feasible.

“We’ll slip in there real nicely,” he said. “We haven’t finalized how to schedule trips from Excelsior and Wayzata, but as the season gets closer, we’ll figure that out.”

Excelsior-based Minnetonka Portable Dredging will install the dock for a little more than $48,000. That cost includes three years of moving the dock for winter storage and re-installing it in the spring.

Concrete pads, rip rap

The council approved the following additional improvements at the park:

“Big Island is an oasis of natural serenity in the middle of Lake Minnetonka, and that’s what we want to preserve.”

Hey Everyone I was at the Boat Barn on Saturday after a 2 week vacation. There was a lot going on with 10-15 folks that came by the barn. The carpentry crew was pushing ahead on the rubrails as they get ready to install it. We will be using Oak for the rubrail replacement, originally on the 1st restoration we used Douglas Fur and that is too light of material so that is the reason for the more expensive, but durable oak. Also Progress continued on the engine and boiler room as I scouted around the barn for misplaced junk. I found a bunch of signs for the museum and also some of the Original SOP’s (Standard Operating Procedures) I think I talked about this in my last post. Then we found that we have Picnic baskets and blankets (IDEA!). Once the dock on Big Island is erected for the 2009 season you may be coming out for a picnic on Big Island. This is one of my Ideas and when we get to that point I hope I can convince the board that this is a fun and money making Idea. So this weeks post was a lot of gibberish and sometimes it is just fun to write whats on my mind. Talk to ya’ll later.

Hi: I just got my issue of the Steamboatin’ news and it’s a great issue. Will this issue in color be put on the MLM website as a PDF file so I can download it?

Also, who is the editor? He/she should be congratulated on a well done newsletter.

Thanks!

Jim Vaitkunas, Minnesota Streetcar Museum

Well We have printed our Schedules for ‘08 season and they look Fabulous. We are now printing our stuff IN COLOR (this is a major breakthrough). Also we have switched the schedule up a bit. For those of you who are closer to Wayzata than Excelsior there will be a 1 hr. round trip leaving from the depot. Also there will be 2 new round trip routes out of Excelsior. There is the original Big Island trip, then we have the Carson’s bay trip, and finally the Gideon and Lafayette bay cruises (I think I spelled the names wrong). This will give you a chance to see more of the lake rather than just the Island. So I hope you will all come out this season. Oh, everyone should start to see our schedules popping up starting in mid-March to early-April as we kick off an early marketing season. Thanks to all who came out to the boat show it was a huge success.

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!

Yea, A lot of stuff Happens in the month of January. From people slippin’ on the Ice to figuring out how to make the Boat more intriguing we are very busy this month.

So today Brad and I drew up some plans for a Merchandise table to be put in the aft portion of the main deck. I was also looking and brain storming what we could do with the Steamboat Minnehaha. Ahhh The question that we are always troubled by. Since most of our brain storming team have past 50 in age and the fact that we do not generally get many volunteers to join. We are always trying to figure out if there is another use for our boat. This year we are exploring the possibility of Friday night “concert Cruises.” We thought that after the Wayzata Concert series is completed that we would run our own concert cruise with smaller bands (like combos) because we have limited space on our boat. If you think this would be a successful adventure please come out the Friday before the season starts (I believe it is the 23nd of May) As we will be having a Practice consert cruise to Kick off the Season. We are trying to be different and make coming out to the boat a fun adventure for everyone. So If you have some insight I would love to hear your Ideas and so would our marketing team.

Also Don’t forget to stop by and see us at the Minnesota Boat Show at the Convention Center. We will be at a little booth with in the Antique Boat Club’s area. We will not be in the Main Show room we are in the area between the doors and the show room I guess you would call it the Wings or entry way (I Poasted a Link to the floor plan {look to the left column}). So come on out to see us and maybe fill out a volunteer form and talk to us about how much fun it is to volunteer on a boat all summer long. The Boat Show runs from January 22-27th. If you want to talk to me… I will be at the Boat show along with another volunteer between 4 & 10 Pm on Saturday the 26th. Hope to see you there.

On Jan 4th our Operations Manager, Brad Buxton, sent out the following email to members/volunteers:

“Greetings and Happy New Year.

Last year Tom R reordered some of the hats, I have them and will bring them to the Boat Barn.

Progress has been made and will continue. So far, the rub rails have been removed and one top side plank that needed replacement. The upper deck lifesaver boxes need some work and repainting. Bob and crew are getting the hull sanded and preped for painting, the Minnehaha pennant is being replaced, the engineers are making great progress on the engine & systems.

As always there is more to do. All in All things are going well, hope to see you at the Barn.

Brad

We will be there Saturday Jan 5th around 9:30″