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Hobby SteamBoaters Have Fun Down By The Riverside

photo by Cookie Steponaitis Celebrating a time in transportation history where the work was hard, but the travel was slower, these steamboaters meet at events around the country to celebrate steamships and to enjoy the ride!

Tuesday July 28, 2015

By Cookie Steponaitis

“It’s not where you are going. It’s how you get there,” expressed North American SteamBoaters Association (NASA) member Russ Steeves this past week while standing at the docks at River’s Edge Cottages & Campground in Vergennes, Vermont with fellow NASA members Rich Richardson and Rich Hubbard. Tied to the docks were five of the fifteen steamboats that made the trip to Otter Creek for the ten day event which has occurred annually for close to two decades.
    Surprisingly reliable, the steamboats present at River’s Edge possess hulls like a sailboat and almost all burn wood using on average about a grocery bag of wood an hour and having a maximum cruising speed of five miles per hour. Joining Steeves and his fellow steamboating hobbyists were people from Delaware, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts with an array of crafts. There are no races or competitions at these events, but there is a genuine attitude of appreciation and celebration of a mode of transportation that appeared in America in 1820 and reached its peak during 1860-1890. There about 250 members of NASA nationwide and events like the Otter Creek gathering happen during the year in locations such as Waterford, New York, Lee’s Mills and Florida where Steeves has taken his steamboat many times.
    NASA provides a connection among hobby steamboaters, insures continuation of the organization and magazine and makes available to the curious and hobbyist alike a way to become involved with events on both coasts of America. The official website http://www.pcez.com/~artemis/NASAhome.htm provides links to other groups and places to order supplies connect with boat builders and steam machinery people and the myriad of people who love this form of transportation. The water highway of Otter Creek is a fitting place to launch and celebrate steamships since it was the center of a booming steamship industry that traveled the open waters of the lake and traversed the 7.7 miles of Otter Creek to the falls. The Daniels Steamboat line ran from the late 1830’s to 1916 in the Little City and featured some wonderful characters including the world’s first licensed steamship captain Philomene Daniels.
    While stopping to look at incredible steamboats like the Sayonara, owned by David and Barbara Conroy it is easy to see the appeal of these vintage type crafts. While most steamboats today are modeled on ships of the late 19th century, they are in fact fiberglass hulls with individually designed interiors featuring personalized stacks and whistles reflecting the character and personality of the owner and type of craft.
    As this reporter was walking up the dock to leave three ladies were coming down with picnic baskets ladened with food and were chatting amicably about their planned afternoon excursion. “Think it’s going to pour?” one lady queried and her friends grinned and one piped up with a reply. “Who cares? We are not going to melt and we are going to see the river, not win a race.” A wonderful answer to celebrate the feeling of the group there and capture the celebration of a time when the work got done, but not at the speed we today demand and as Steeves expressed, “It’s not where you are going. It is how you get there.”

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