The Steamboating Forum

Hello Steamboaters,

Mack Fox here, Captain of the P. S. TULE PRINCESS. I am making this post to ask for your help. Back in March 2013, I came up with the idea of bringing the last of the large scale Walking-beam sidewheel paddle steamers from Bay City, MI to isolated, mostly arid western Texas, San Angelo, Texas. With much research and hard work, loads of prayer and the support of many friends and civic leaders, we were able to secure a lease from our local City Council to operate our excursion business and funding to purchase the TULE PRINCESS.

After two years, we finally opened our little excursion/private charter boat business March 19th, 2015. However, at the end of May, 2015, San Angelo & Lake Nasworthy experienced a 60+ mph wind storm that was believed to have contain a small tornado. This wind storm came at us directly from the North and completely destroyed our first dock set up. Fortunately, at the time, we were storing TULE at an alternate location so we could finish some refit issues.
With the construction of our second dock configuration, we asked our contractor to build us a rigid, re-enforced dock layout that would, in theory, be able to berth our 28K lb. steel vessel and withstand future storms. He did a really fine job in every respect. Our first season was successful and TULE road out the weather well. We ended our first season the second week of December and was looking forward to a couple of months to rest and recuperation.

As we were planning for the coming of Spring and all the work needing to be done, TULE once again had a “bull’s eye” painted on her by Mother Nature. Monday, February 1st, 2016, Lake Nasworthy was again the recipient of a violent wind storm with sustained winds at 50+mph from the North/North West; the worst of all points of wind for being berthed on the main body of the Lake. With sustained winds building 3-5 ft swells, TULE was lifted, rolled and SLAMMED against her dock with such force as to destroy one entire section of the re-enforced dock, shattering decking boards and putting a 5 ft long dent in the Port Stern Toe Rail and a section of the aft hand railing. When we were able to get down to the boat, it was heart wrenching to hear metal boat bouncing up against metal dock framing. We grabbed all the spare tires we could find and began padding her up as best we could.

Facing the reality & expense of now having to re-build our dock AGAIN and now repairing TULE, we have come to realize TULE must have a new, sheltered location to operate from. To help make this move possible, we need your help. We have started a GoFundMe.com “crowd funding” campaign to help raise the necessary capital to move our dock layout, rebuild it, build a new ticket booth and repair the damage to TULE herself. Check our Facebook page: TULE PRINCESS STEAMBOAT Co. or our GoFundMe.com page: https://www.gofundme.com/tulefund for more details.

Any donation, would be of immense help in getting us back on our feet.

Mack,

Very sorry to hear your woes, they do happen, it's a matter of learning and moving on.

Some points regarding the dock you plan to build as a replacement (coming from a Boatmaster's Licenseholder for up to 250pax passenger boats);

- The dock you have in the pictures is set up to resist vertical compressive loads, but offers very little side impact resistance.

A dock should be strong enough to hold passengers and cargo weight, but also sustain an un-powered half-speed impact without significant damage or causing danger to embarking/disembarking passengers. Which leads me to...

-... a dock built of timber is highly recommeded; it is simple to install on thick piles, set at around 6-8ft centres depending on diameter. This allows you to put both longitudinal ties between all the piles, but also 'x' ties between piles in the opposing direction to an impact. A timber dock on vertical piles is also slightly flexible- make the 'x' ties in plan view, not section view, and the impact is spread through the entire length of the pier rather than localised to the point of contact.

Timber is also far more sympathetic to timber parts of the boat and doesn't cause any damage to the steel extremities of the vessel.

Timber piers can also be repaired/modified easily, and allows easy tailoring of placing rubbing boards etc.

An 'L' shaped jetty can have vertical 'wash boards' on the inside and outside perimeters, which means that with a look at the weather forecast at the end of the day, the boat can always be placed in a relatively sheltered spot overnight. If this isn't possible then pile 3 or 6 substantial pile groups (a group of piles at 4ft centres on a triangle plan, with timber through-bolted ties is the best formation) around 30ft off the pier, parallel to it, and this will allow you to spring the vessel off the pier by 10-15ft, allowing her to ride out the storms without being in striking distance of any large static objects.

You may have already come to some/all of these conclusions, but as the boat I qualified on was built in 1859, we had a lot of history to look back on to show how best to do things, not to mention so much of the original infrastructure of the passenger steamers here in the English Lake District is still extant, it proves what has worked and what hasn't!


On the bright side, you still have the will and the support to carry on, which is good news! Best of luck to you all, hope it's sorted out soon and steam raised for passengers by summer.

Greg