Riverboats push to keep cruising

• By CHAD CALDER
• Advocate business writer
• Published: Nov 6, 2008 - Page: 1D - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.
• Correction:
  The owner of the Delta Queen steamboat was misidentified in a story on Page 1D of Thursday’s Advocate. The boat’s owner is Ambassadors International Inc. Also, Delta Queen historian Bill Wiemuth’s name was misspelled. The Advocate regrets the errors.

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The Delta Queen steamboat arrived in downtown Baton Rouge on Wednesday afternoon to make one last sales pitch for support in its bid to continue carrying tourists up and down the Mississippi River.

The steam-powered paddle wheeler, the last of its kind, has been stopping in Baton Rouge for decades, bringing as many as 300 tourists per visit.

For 42 years, the boat has been getting regular exemptions from a 1966 federal law that, for safety reasons, banned wooden vessels from carrying 50 or more people on overnight trips. Last year, however, after nine exemptions, the bill was left to die in a congressional committee.

Bill Wiemuch, a Delta Queen historian and de facto spokesman during the farewell tour, said the chairman of the House committee that oversees the issue, Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., has safety concerns. But Weimuch and the boat’s supporters are still hoping they can change his mind.

After Wiemuch spent an hour Wednesday afternoon recounting the boat’s history to city dock visitors, he said the 1920s-era boat has very modern safety features, which include a fire crew on board and up-to-date safety equipment and technology.

“Plus she’s 81 years without an incident,” he said. “That’s a pretty good safety record.”

A spokesman for Oberstar referred a call inquiring about his position on the issue to the committee, which could not be reached in time for comment.

Wednesday’s event actually took place on the American Queen, another boat owned by Windstar Cruises, with the Delta Queen tied up alongside it.

Baton Rouge Mayor-President Kip Holden and St. Francisville Mayor Billy D’Aquilla both were on hand to pledge their support.

Holden said the city-parish will send letters to Congress and appeal for support among the state’s congressional delegation for granting the federal exemption.

Holden said he had just talked to a couple from California who had been to Baton Rouge on the Delta Queen, and he noted visitors to Baton Rouge return home and talk about the city.

The promotional value of the boat, which stopped in Baton Rouge 12 times in the last two years, is too great for the city to not to lend support, he said.

Vincent “Cy” Tortorich, a history teacher who came in from Donaldsonville, said he was sold.