By Bob Van Leer

  (STEVENSON, WASHINGTON, April 20, 2005) - This was a day of cruising the Columbia. There are to be no stops and we can spend the day relaxing. John Borneman, the Queen of the West resident historian, gave a presentation on the journey of Lewis and Clark.

  We spent some time getting better acquainted with the ship. There were tours of the pilot house and galley. The cooks do a remarkable job, cooking for up to 150 persons in a space little larger than a household kitchen.  The Queen of the West is 230 feet long and 50 feet wide and 69 feet high from keel to stack.   The sole propulsion is the paddlewheel which is 26 feet in diameter and 29 feet wide. Hydraulic propulsion turns the paddlewheel. It revolves at a maximum of 21 rpm. There is a bow thruster that pushes sideways for maneuverability. Cruise speed is 11 knots and maximum speed is 14 knots (16 mph).  

   The Queen was built in 1994 in Washington to hull dimensions and paddlewheel configuration of the sternwheeler Portland, now a museum. It has four decks with 73 staterooms and suites for a maximum of 163 passengers. There is a showroom lounge, formal dining room and three bars. The Queen's steam whistles come from an unknown steamer of the 1800s. One of the locks we passed through today was the John Day Dam. The lock lift is 113 feet, the tallest single lift lock in the Western World, according to a fact sheet. We tied up for the night at Stevenson.