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The elegant, multi-deck paddle wheeler has plied the Mississippi and other rivers for 81 years, recalling a slower-moving era of opulence and romance with rivers. Since 1970, the Delta Queen has toured on overnight trips only through an exemption from Coast Guard regulations for vessels built primarily of wood.
But this summer, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee refused to renew the Delta Queen’s 10-year exemption when it sent a catch-all Coast Guard bill to the floor.
The committee’s chairman, Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., is adamant; he asserts that Congress has given no other ship such an exemption.
“I can’t imagine the number of lives that could be lost if a fire started on the Delta Queen when everyone is asleep,” he said. “Congress would never exempt a particular 747 aircraft from FAA safety standards and we should not exempt a passenger vessel carrying hundreds of sleeping people from Coast Guard safety standards.”
Losing the exemption would prevent the Delta Queen from running overnight cruises after November 2008. The multi-day cruises on a ship rich with mahogany and teak, adorned with stained glass and antiques and featuring fine dining and deluxe linens, are what appeal to well-heeled travelers. Bookings on a seven-night cruise from St. Louis to Nashville next year are advertised at between $2,300 and $3,600 per person for staterooms.
The committee action was an early step in the congressional process. But Seattle-based Majestic America Line, the ship’s owner since last year, surprised Delta Queen fans by seemingly giving up and announcing a farewell celebration for the Delta Queen next year. The boat’s fate has not been spelled out.
The developments have riled Delta Queen devotees as well as fans of steamboats and river culture in general. In an Internet campaign this month, they are attempting to persuade Congress to let the last overnight sternwheel steamboat to continue.
“It’s a relic of American history,” asserted Nori Muster, an Arizona real estate agent whose late father, Bill, led the last such exemption fight 38 years ago.
“People who love the boat must rise up in a movement to save it, or at least pay for its retirement, or it’s going to end up a gambling boat or something that would be sacrilegious.”
Whatever happens, the Delta Queen has survived long enough and with such a storied past that it is recognized as a National Historical Landmark.
The 240-foot long Queen was built in Scotland in 1926 along with its twin, the Delta King, which fell on hard times itself prior to being converted to a hotel and restaurant along the Sacramento River. In their early years in California, the King and Queen were World War II military vessels ferrying naval reservists and wounded soldiers.
After it was bought in 1946, the Queen made a 5,261-mile journey through the Panama Canal to New Orleans, before starting service on midwestern rivers that continues to this day.
In 1963, the Greek ship Lakonia caught fire on a Christmas cruise in the Canary Island, taking 125 lives. Two years later, 90 people perished when the Yarmouth Castle, a multi-wooden deck boat built the same year as Delta Queen, caught fire on a cruise from Miami to Nassau. The tragedies prompted the 1965 Safety of Life at Sea treaty and a new resolve by the Coast Guard to enforce safety rules that required overnight passenger ships to be built with non-flammable materials.
The Delta Queen would have been relegated to day cruises soon after if powerful Rep. Edward Garmatz, D-Md., chairman of the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, had gotten his way.
In a letter to House members in 1970 with his hand-drawn skulls-and-crossbones, Garmatz wrote: “I hope the Delta Queen never burns. But if it does, the blood will be on Congress, not on the expert agencies which told us to stop the operation.”
But a campaign that included Vicki Webster, of St. Louis, who worked in the Richard M. Nixon White House at the time, and included Johnny Cash and other notables, won an exemption from Coast Guard rules. Webster is upset now by what she calls “the stupidity of it all. It’s a typical case of people wanting to be protected from day one from harm. You might have to ride on planes and buses and streetcars from time to time. But nobody has to ride on the Delta Queen.”
The Coast Guard didn’t support the exemption then and doesn’t now, reiterating in a statement earlier this month that the exemption would pose “an unacceptable risk.” The statement added that the Delta Queen still could make sightseeing runs and voyages without overnight guests.
The vessel is subject to frequent inspections. For instance, records show the Coast Guard found improper wiring “creating a possible fire hazard” during an inspection in February in New Orleans. It was later fixed.
Majestic America Line, argues that training, sprinklers and various fire and smoke detection devices provide ample protection for passengers. The company insists that it lobbied vigorously to retain the exemption and didn’t declare the cause lost until Oberstar and his Senate counterpart, Daniel Inouye, chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation, each said no.
“We’d be ecstatic if someone were to carry the torch at this point,” said Joseph McCarthy, chief counsel for Ambassadors International, Majestic’s parent company.
Thus far, efforts by Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-Mo., and others who have backed the exemption have fallen short.
Meanwhile, a Save the Delta Queen Internet campaign organized from Germany is picking up steam.
Franz Neumeier, who started the campaign, isn’t optimistic. “It doesn’t look good at the moment,” said Neumeier, 38, who edits two computer magazines in Munich. He spoke while cruising the Ohio River on another steamboat, the American Queen.
Long-time Delta Queen fans like Beau Hampton, who has played Dixieland drums on many cruises, says he sees no valid issue based on his work on 50 vessels.
“It’s a joke. If a fire breaks out, you just pull over to the side of the river. It’s not like we’re gonna sink or anything,” he said.
Others, like Arizona’s Nori Muster, see more at stake than cruising in their lifelong attachment to the Delta Queen.
“Boats are my deities,” said Muster. “They are symbols of something good about America. They represent innocence and progress, and they tell us a lot about human folly.
DELTA QUEEN’S STORIED PAST
Built in 1926 from parts made in Scotland and shipped to California.
Began service in 1927.
Ferried naval reservists and wounded soldiers during WWII.
Sold in 1946 and traveled through the Panama Canal to New Orleans, where it began cruising Midwestern rivers.
Began landing in St. Louis in 1954.
Has been designated a National Historic Landmark.
