The Great Steamboat Race

[HostDave]

By Christopher Kyte, President

If you haven’t yet guessed by now, I’m a big fan of tradition. I love steamboats, train travel and anything from the past that keeps our history alive. Indeed, tradition is the one constant that flows through both the present and the future to remind us of where we’ve come. Every family has its traditions, whether it’s the recipe for stuffing on Thanksgiving or that special spot to watch fireworks on the 4th of July. American river cruising has its traditions as well, and those traditions are rooted far back in history.

Ever since there have been steamboats, there have been steamboat races. The most famous was from New Orleans to St. Louis in 1870 when the Robert E. Lee bested the Natchez. Steamboat racing back then was dangerous as the engine and boiler technology had not kept pace with the egos of the steamboat captains. There were fires and explosions galore. The general rule seemed to be that you were the automatic winner if the other boat blew up!

Technology caught up to steamboat racing and it’s as safe as sitting on your sofa these days, although quite a bit more exciting. But as you can imagine, there aren’t too many races because there aren’t too many steamboats left. Today we arrived in Louisville, a city steeped in tradition. From the Louisville Slugger factory to the Muhammad Ali museum to historic Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby, Louisville is a city that lives its traditions every day.

Since 1963, one of those traditions was the annual Great Steamboat Race between the hometown boat, the Belle of Louisville, and the immortal Delta Queen. The Belle of Louisville dates to 1914, the Delta Queen to 1926 and both were Registered National Historic Landmarks so it was a race without peers. Each was fully steam-powered and each had pride on the line every year when they left the landing for the two-hour sprint as part of the larger Kentucky Derby Festival held in the days before the big horse race. The winner took home the famed Golden Antlers in recognition of its status as the fastest boat on the river.

Unfortunately, that tradition came to an end in 2008 when the Delta Queen was retired to become a floating attraction in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Louisville kept the race going with a competition against the Belle of Cincinnati, a diesel-powered vessel originally built as an Iowa casino boat in 1991. When we were reviving the American Queen, I jumped at the chance to get back in the race this year so made certain we crafted a sailing schedule that brought the American Queen to town on the big day.

So, today we participated in the Great Steamboat Race. It was the first time an authentic steam-powered overnight paddlewheeler had challenged the Belle of Louisville since the Delta Queen. The race is a big deal, even though the boats compete for the Silver Antlers these day, the Golden Antlers having been retired with the Delta Queen. We had our lucky charm aboard, Gordon C. Greene, whose family once owned Greene Line Steamers and was responsible for bringing the Delta Queen to the Mississippi.

I watched as a growing crowd headed down to the river to witness the start. We lined up with the Belle of Louisville and Belle of Cincinnati at the Second Street Bridge as crowds cheered, bands played and news helicopters buzzed overhead. The American Queen is a big boat, so it takes a while for her to build her momentum so it was no surprise that the other boats got off to a faster start. The bourbon flowed, the paddlewheel churned, the calliope played and soon we had passed the Belle of Louisville, leaving her far astern. We reached the halfway point slightly ahead of the Belle of Cincinnati and extended our lead by cleanly rounding the marker.

Apparently, there are all sorts of esoteric steamboat race rules involving gathering flags, picking up local celebrities and the like. Our resident Riverlorian, Travis Vasconcelos who is a Louisville native, made sense of it all for our guests who had a thoroughly grand time. Whether it was the thrill of the race, the sounds of the calliope or the warmth of the bourbon that was the primary fuel feeding the American Queen cheering section, we’ll never know for certain.

One thing I do know for certain is that we thoroughly whipped the Belle of Cincinnati. I also know for certain that we sailed the entire race course and the same cannot be said for the Belle of Louisville. We picked up our flag at the halfway point and the Louisville boat was nowhere to be seen, far astern and lost behind a bend in the river. The Belle of Louisville crossed the finish line before us and there was much uncertainty over who the winner of the race really was. But the new point system instituted this year means that the results of contests at the dock such as rope tossing, bourbon barrel retrieval from the water and a calliope competition means that the Belle of Louisville won the race with the most accumulated points even though she didn’t sail the entire course. There’s always next year!

But win or lose, the important part of today was the continuation of a long tradition of steamboat racing in Louisville. I am proud and excited that the American Queen got to play its part in keeping that tradition flowing, just like the river, from the past into the present and, hopefully, long into the future.