Better Than New

[HostDave]

February 21, 2013

It’s been a busy time at the shipyard in New Orleans as we prepare the American Queen for the beginning of the 2013 sailing season. As we mentioned in our February 5 blog, we’ve been adding new platinum-toned wallpaper, building a new elegant marble and granite entryway to the J.M. White Dining Room, creating the Front Porch Café, hanging new artwork, and installing mahogany plantation shutters on French doors in suites and staterooms. Some of the enhancements are behind the scenes, such as new state-of-the-art appliances in the galley.

But the biggest project of all was just completed earlier this week as the shaft on the 65-ton paddlewheel was replaced. Just how difficult is that? Imagine taking your car into the shop but rather than changing the tire, you have to change the axle. Essentially, that’s what we did on the American Queen. We’re happy to report that the operation was a complete success and that our elegant belle of the river performed flawlessly during a series of test runs two days ago on the Mississippi River. Whenever such an important part of a riverboat is worked on, the United States Coast Guard (USCG) has to certify the vessel as fit for service and the American Queen easily received their seal of approval. We have such admiration for the men and women of the USCG and we want to thank everyone who participated in the process.

You may wonder how one replaces the shaft on a paddlewheel. The answer to that would be very carefully. It involves the disassembly of all the elements that one associates with a paddlewheel. The bucket boards come off and so does all the underlying lumber. Imagine taking apart a jigsaw puzzle but having to number, catalogue and file away each piece so that when it comes time to reassemble the puzzle, you can do so quickly and correctly. Now take that idea and increase the scope and the scale and you have some idea of what it takes to rebuild a paddlewheel around a new shaft. And don’t forget it’s not just the big pieces that have to be put back together again; there are also thousands of bolts holding it all together.

Now that the work is complete, the paddlewheel propulsion system on the American Queen is not just like new, but even better than new. Riverboat fans out there might recall the American’ Queen’s original paddlewheel when she entered service for the Delta Queen Steamboat Company in 1995. It had been many years since anyone had constructed a paddlewheel of such size and coupled with the building of the world’s largest authentic steam-powered paddlewheel riverboat, the entire project proved to involve more art than engineering science.

When the American Queen originally set out on her first powered trials on the river 18 years ago, it was immediately clear to everyone onboard that something was seriously amiss. When running solely under paddlewheel power, the boat propelled itself downstream only slightly faster than the current and when it turned around to power its way upstream, it made almost no headway at all. All the calculations showed that the horsepower was more than enough to do the job and the enormous paddlewheel was certainly big enough to push the world’s largest riverboat along her merry way. So what had gone wrong?

It turned out that the problem was a combination of two things. The first was that the shaft was too low. In other words, the axle was too close to the road. Since the road was river water, that meant too much of the paddlewheel was dipping below the surface, making it difficult for the wheel to rotate with the assigned horsepower. Some additional calculations were needed to discover that the bucket boards (the horizontal portions of the paddlewheel) were too large and were trying to scoop up too much water with each turn of the mighty red wheel. The solution was to stagger the boards and, more importantly, remove several boards to reduce the surface area of the paddlewheel. With these two changes, the American Queen sailed upriver like a champ.

Thankfully, all this had been figured out long before we did our recent work earlier this week in the shipyard. That’s why once our Operations Team sorted through the pieces and had the paddlewheel back in place, the American Queen wasn’t just like new; she was even better than new.

Even so, it was a monumental task. While the construction of paddlewheels was once commonplace in the United States, the number of skilled trades people with the knowledge of how to do things right has dwindled to just a handful. The sheer size of the American Queen means that she can offer far more amenities, dining options, space and activities than any other riverboat sailing today. It also means that no other passenger boat has a paddlewheel as large or as complex as the installation on the American Queen.

Part of the charm of joining the American Queen for a voyage on the Mississippi, Ohio or Tennessee rivers is watching that enormous red wheel churn the water and propel the boat on her way. It’s a snapshot of what Mark Twain experienced 150 years ago and we’re excited to be the stewards of that tradition today. With a new paddlewheel shaft on the grandest riverboat ever built, we plan to carry on Twain’s legacy for many, many years to come.