Dry-docked..It's good..R.

Built in 1931, Captain Meriwether Lewis is a steel-hulled sidewheel dredge with a steel and wood superstructure, in the photo the bow is on the left. The engines on the craft drove Lewis' two steel and white oak sidewheels, and steam was provided through the dredge's two diesel-fired water-tube boilers. Drawing river water from the Missouri, a pumping engine directed water into a 250-h.p. steam turbine once it was filtered. From the turbine the water was jetted into the river bottom or bank through 38 nozzles. As the face of the cut collapsed or the bottom was cut up, the large 36-inch diameter intake (the pipe you mentioned, Jeff) pumped the nearly liquid mud at 40, 000-g . p.m. out into the 34-inch diameter discharge pipe, which attached aft and ran out on floating pontoons for a distance of 500 to 1,000 feet (the pontoons seen on the right). The pipe was set on a center-pivoting mount on each pontoon to make a snaking line. The last section of pipe on its pontoon was steered by a member of the crew in a small "dog house" (the little white shack on top of the pontoons on the right). The vessel was capable of dredging, on average, 80,000 cubic yards of spoil. To anchor, two 20-inch square steel spuds (the angled steel projecting out both ends of the craft), 38 and 42 feet long, were dropped into the bottom to hold the vessel fast in the swift river current. The ship is now a museum. Your well-shot and interesting photo is the kind that makes one (well, this research nerd, anyway) want to find out more. We have a "steamboat" here named the "Lewis & Clark" but it's a tiny excursion craft about 1/3 the size of your ship. Thanks for helping to keep my gray matter working, Jeff.

-Nik

...Makes a peculiar conversation piece at that...Faved...

That is so cool - this would be a fabulous Bed & Breakfast