Steamboat Weekend

Rocky Point Resort hosts a Steamboat Club every year. They began arriving on Thursday and the last one launched his boat on Saturday. If you have never seen small personal steamboats you have missed something unique in the US. It appears most of the boats began life as a Lifeboat sometime in the 40's and 50's - many of them for WWII ships. The largest of them seated 30 or so passengers and are all of metal construction (convenient if you intend to build wood fires in them!!!). The exception to that is the paddlewheel boat pictured below which is all wood and is absolutely beautiful. The owner is a retired airline mechanic now living near Seattle who built everything on the boat except the boiler!!!