The riverboat captain is a storyteller, and Captain Don Sanders will be sharing the stories of his long association with the river — from discovery to a way of love and life. This a part of a long and continuing story.
By Capt. Don Sanders
Special to NKyTribune
Captain John Beatty’s name had a familiar ring to my ears long before I met the legendary riverman after the DELTA QUEEN was laid up awaiting an exemption from the “Safety at Sea” law in early winter, 1970.
The week after Christmas, my wife and I were looking at a rundown mansion on lower Garrard Street in my hometown of Covington, Kentucky, and we told the sales agent we would “think about it.” What better place to mull over such a life-bending decision than at the MIKE FINK Floating Restaurant on the city’s riverfront; then owned and operated by Captain John and his wife, Clare?
Captain John Beatty
A new addition to the FINK complex of floating paraphernalia was a classic, vintage towboat tied to the floats behind the paddlewheel restaurant, itself, once a towboat that pushed barges on the Ohio River with the power of its steam-driven sternwheel.
Inquiring as to the ownership of the lovely older boat, it was not surprising to find that Captain John Beatty’s name was on the vessel’s documents of registration. Excusing myself from the table, I ventured astern to meet this legendary man I’d heard about since I was a boy on the river. If the purchase of a “new” home was in the air, then I need a job as the future of the DELTA QUEEN was iffy, at best.
Behind the MIKE FINK lay a long line of steel “floats,” or docks used to moor visiting customers arriving afloat at the legendary river dining spot, as well as a select-few private riverboats that permanently docked alongside the immaculately-maintained floating berths which once held dredge pipes for the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) before Captain Beatty acquired them. Beatty was known as the premier salvage operator on the inland rivers.
Captain Beatty and the MIKE FINK Floating Restaurant on Covington’s Riverfront.
The Corp called on Captain Beatty for their worst and most dangerous salvage jobs. Such was the time the government would trust only him to raise sunken tank barges wedged into the gates of McAlpine Dam at Louisville filled with hazardous hydrogen chloride where one mishap might release of a deadly cloud of green gas, the same stuff used with appalling results in the First World War.
As I approached the towboat built in an Art Deco style with soft curves instead of sharp corners and having graceful portholes set into the steel hull that added to the charm of the boat I later discovered was built a year before my birth, I asked a deckhand busy at something on-deck where I could find the captain.
“That’s him over there.”
Crossing over the deck at my own invitation, I approached a large, burly man wearing a bright-red woolen lumberjack shirt bent over at whatever he was fixing. Waiting until after he finished, I inquired:
“Looking for a Mate? I’m the Mate on the DELTA QUEEN.”
A collection of all the floating salvage equipment known generally as “Beatty’s Navy.”
“You ever work salvage before?” the big man, nearly as heavy as Captain Wagner, but not as tall, gruffly asked while eyeing me skeptically.
“No, but I can learn.”
“Ain’t got time to teach you. We’re leaving tomorrow for Gallipolis to raise barges. If you want a deckhand’s job, be here, and packed, at eight in the morning.”
With those few words, Cap’n John Beatty hired me on the first crew of his newly-acquired twin screw, diesel-powered towboat he was fixing to name for Mrs. Beatty, the CLARE E. BEATTY, formerly the SEMET, built by Dravo Shipyards, Pittsburgh, PA, in 1940. Now that I had a job, I returned to the FINK to discuss purchasing a home.
Returning early the following morning, well before eight, the CLARE was cold, and a heavy dew condensed on the deck made walking on the steel somewhat awkward. Eventually, I discovered the crew inside the cookhouse at the stern of the boat hunched over the remnants of half-drunken cups of strong riverboat coffee. The cook was one of a pair of fellows who’d been hired on the crew since soon after Beatty brought the boat to the Covington Landing. His partner was one of four men on deck. I was another.
Captain Beatty soon appeared looking grim from inside the MIKE FINK where he had converted the pilothouse of the old paddlewheel towboat into his office. Without a word of greeting to any of his crew, he sternly commanded,
“Get ready to go.”
Soon the CLARE faced-up on a collection of all the floating salvage equipment known generally as “Beatty’s Navy.” Included in that fleet were several empty hopper barges, two cranes – one steam-powered and called BIG JOHN, and the other, the diesel-electric-powered HERCULES; two World-War-Two-era Navy minesweepers connected at their bows with massive steel girders of a bridge the captain salvaged earlier in his career, and assorted pipe flats and such. What all this mismatched equipment had in common was, it all leaked! As I was soon to learn, each floating vessel required constant scrutiny and individual attention – especially the minesweepers. Inside those ships, the sounds of dripping water echoing off the steel walls reminded me of being deep in a cavern within the earth.
As the new year approached, temperatures plummeted to below zero on the Ohio River making our deck duties especially tricky.
As the new year approached, temperatures plummeted to below zero on the Ohio River making our deck duties especially tricky. Besides the usual dangers associated with ice on the decks, the lines, or ropes, we used to lock the fleet through a dam or for whatever other purposes, would soon freeze into the shapes they were left in, outside in the extreme cold. Coiling the lines made uncoiling them nearly impossible; so we laid them stretched out lengthwise on the decks. It was amusing to pick up one end of a long line and see that the entire length of the frozen rope was more like the limb of a tree than it was something made of flexible fiber. Even more amusing was my very long handlebar mustache that instantly froze as soon as I stepped outside the CLARE and into the bitter air. As it froze, I swore I heard a “clunk” as it solidified.
Before midnight, on the 31st of December, as New Year’s 1971, overtook the old, the CLARE was in Gallipolis Lock, about eight miles downstream from our destination. As the pilothouse clock chimed the mitternacht hour, Captain Beatty pulled hard on the cord attached to the beautiful set of Kahlenberg air horns on the roof and welcomed in another year on the river. For the first time since I met the Captain, he smiled, and then wished us all a “Happy New Year!” After a minute passed, Cap’n John turned and looked grimly out the pilothouse window as the revelry ended as quickly as it began and I went into the wintry blast to stand by my line and waited for the upper lock gate to open. As soon as the lock blew a quick toot, the CLARE answered in kind. It was the signal to “let go,” as the Captain came ahead on the diesel engines and the tow scrapped dust from the lock wall as steel ground against cement. We were slowly underway, again.
The current in the Ohio River was running swiftly, and though the distance was short to where several barges lay sunken on the ice piers in front of Gallipolis city, it would be several hours before we would get there.
“Better get ya some rest,” Cap’n Beatty advised. “Yer gonna be needin’ it.”
I laid across my bunk with my clothes on and hung my boots off the end of the rack until a shout from someone announced our arrival at Gallipolis. Outside, the frigid air stung my face as I watched while the river was piling up around the concrete ice piers as the salvage rig slowly crept up to them. Hefty wire cables from the minesweepers were made fast to the heavy steel rings hanging from the lower ends of two of the three structures built years earlier to shelter steamboats from crushing ice flows whenever the river froze, and the ice was grinding towards the sea. The sharp clang of the steel rings, as they struck the cement piers, reminded me of mooring rings smacking against cobblestone levees at times I had secured the headlines of the AVALON or the DELTA QUEEN to them. With the lines out and tight, Captain Beatty reduced the throttles of the CLARE’s twin engines, and the entire fleet dropped slowly downstream until it settled against the stout wires made fast the ice piers. For the foreseeable future, this would be our base of operations and what we could call “home.”
The government would trust only him to raise sunken tank barges wedged into the gates of McAlpine Dame at Louisville filled with hazardous hydrogen chloride.
Without wasting valuable time, the Captain immediately ordered his deck force to start breaking up the conglomeration of barges and cranes and start making up a smaller tow to eventually get into position alongside the partly-submerged hopper barges piled against the upper ends of the government piers. The loaded coal barges broke loose from a fleet somewhere upstream, and the force of the current of the Ohio River was so powerful, that when the hoppers met the unrelenting concrete, they were stoved-in and three went to the bottom where they remained awaiting our arrival.
Just about the time we rearranged the tow, the cook gave a short beep on the CLARE’s horns, and we broke for lunch. The cook, one of a pair of pals who hired on about a month before I came aboard, always had hearty, hot meals waiting for the cold crowd of half-frozen men who clomped down the back steps into his kitchen three times a day.
The captain was not a coffee drinker, so coffee breaks to warm the chilled body and soul of a crewman were out of the question. Our working hours were from before sunup to the last light of day. Even in the short daylight hours of winter, that amounted to many hours outside in the frigid weather. Soon I learned to eat fast, for when Captain John Beatty finished his meal, stood up, and walked out of the galley, he expected the rest of his men to follow.
(To be continued…Part II next week)
Captain Don Sanders is a river man. He has been a riverboat captain with the Delta Queen Steamboat Company and with Rising Star Casino. He learned to fly an airplane before he learned to drive a “machine” and became a captain in the USAF. He is an adventurer, a historian, and a storyteller. Now, he is a columnist for the NKyTribune and will share his stories of growing up in Covington and his stories of the river. Hang on for the ride — the river never looked so good.
Another fantastic rendering by Capt Don. I felt the cold. I knew Capt Beatty and spent time on the Clsre but even if i hadn’t, I felt as if i was renegotiating those decks n watching the deckhands fight the lines n ice. Thank you NKy Tribune for providing this great forum for Capt Don Sanders to weave the magic of the river for river and nonriver folks to share.
Regarding the purchase of the Rafter Clyde. Wow. I so felt like I was there. The growing enthusiasm in your chest and your brain wrestling with the details. Thanks for sharing.
It’s great to return to a time when a man’s reputation and his word could negotiate a potential deal even 100s to 1000s of miles away. Thank heavens email makes it quicker but the principle still is the same.
He is a facinating man. He has lots of stories of the river. I could listen to him for hours. I worked with him on Grand Victoria. Looking forward to the next article. Good job Capt. Don.
Wonderful and easy to follow. We need more stories like this. Cap’n Don is a jewel. Thanks for publishing.
Don paints a picture when he writes. Those of us who knew Capt. Beatty can picture him in your mind when Cap. Don writes about him. Good stuff!!
I worked for Capt. Beatty and I sure learned a lot from him, there will never be another Capt. on the river like him he knew the river like the back of his hand.