The River: A busy week aboard the Rafter Clyde — dining in new galley, visitors, and memories galore

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

I always enjoy eating aboard the boat, especially with guests, in the intimate galley area seated at the oak table covered in a red-checkered tablecloth reminding me of boyhood forays into Grandmother Edith’s kitchen on 38th Street, many seasons ago. 

This past Wednesday was busy aboard the Rafter CLYDE. At 1100 AM, a fellow interested in looking over the sternwheeler was already waiting at the dock before I arrived with two chicken dinners, a carton of flavored drinking water, and a bag of ice for the cooler. I always enjoy eating aboard the boat, especially with guests, in the intimate galley area seated at the oak table covered in a red-checkered tablecloth reminding me of boyhood forays into Grandmother Edith’s kitchen on 38th Street, many seasons ago.

Across the way from the CLYDE., Alexander Watson and Dale Harris were in the final throes of winterizing their wooden Chris-Craft, BETTY JANE, the heroine of Alexander’s intriguing book, “River Queens.” As I explained the significance of the Breast Board on the front of an old-time steamboat pilothouse, Alexander asked if we’d give him a hand with the brass-tubed supports for a fabric covering over-top the bridge of his boat.

“It’s a three-man job,” he reasoned. It was.

Across the way from the CLYDE., Alexander Watson and Dale Harris were in the final throes of winterizing their wooden Chris-Craft, BETTY JANE, the heroine of Alexander’s intriguing book, “River Queens.”

After lunch and several inquiries into the inter-most quirks of the CLYDE, my guest pushed on toward his next stop, and it wasn’t long before Dale, Alexander, and Koal, their coal-black poodle, were last seen traipsing toward their car. Now, I was alone on the covered dock with three hours, yet, before I expected Phillip Johnson, CLYDE’s Chief Engineer to arrive and winterize the four-cylinder, Kubota diesel engine – all 35 horses.

Half-dozing, I heard the soft voice of a little girl talking outside the CLYDE, and before I could drag myself out of a saggy deck chair, the starboard door slid open and in popped Phillip and his four-year-old daughter Maddie. Though Maddie had been aboard the CLYDE before, I was surprised to see her without her older brother. “Where’s Ryker?” I asked, only to discover he was sick at home. Fortunately, the CLYDE has several mascots that always interest children. Maddie soon met JoJo-the-Monkey, Brownie-the-Bear, Sweet Pea, Lulu Belle, and Jake-the-Snake, but she quickly found Kat-the-Purser and Ratt-the Chief Steward inside another overhead nook. Before long, as Phillip dug into the tool chest and began the winterizing processes, I was suffering rubber snake and rat bites encouraged by a laughing four-year-old until Kat came to my defense.

Half-dozing, I heard the soft voice of a little girl talking outside the CLYDE, and before I could drag myself out of a saggy deck chair, the starboard door slid open and in popped Phillip and his four-year-old daughter Maddie.

Soon the clatter of the Kubota drowned out the sound of play as it came alive with the turn of the ignition key. Phillip scurred from the engine compartment to the pilothouse, adjusting the throttle. With a shove of the clutch, CLYDE’s one-ton, White Oak, wooden paddlewheel shoved ahead against the stern towline.

“Come outside and listen to the slap-slap of the wheel,” Phillip announced as he took his daughter’s hand, and we walked to the end of the finger dock alongside the revolving sternwheel to savor the last dulcet tones of the paddlewheel before CLYDE slept until Spring. The slapping of the oaken buckets, not paddles, brought back memories of many adventures aboard the CLYDE during the seven summers since Everett Dameron and I brought her some 1,300 miles from Alma, Wisconsin. The splashing wake trailing behind the wheel only reminded me how quickly seven years passed in but a moment in time since I first heard that paddlewheel smacking the water at Alma.

Before long, Phillip stopped the engine, and in just a few minutes more, biodegradable anti-freeze displaced the water in the cooling system. The Chief announced, “CLYDE’s winterized for another year.” Just like that, our boating season was over.

The Tennessee Valley Sand & Gravel Company then acquired the CLYDE and ran her until the very month and year of my birth, October 1941, when she was laid up and cut down to a single-decker.

Earlier, as I waited for Phillip’s arrival, I sorted through the various envelopes in CLYDE’s bookcase and discovered an article from the “Old Boat Column” of the WATERWAYS JOURNAL. Written by the late river columnist James V. “Jimmy” Swift, the material, entitled, “The Steamer CLYDE Went To Tennessee River,” was dated 09 February 1985.

The column stated that the original Steamer CLYDE, the first iron-hulled steamboat on the Upper Mississippi River, for whom my CLYDE was built to commemorate, “was one of the first vessels in raft towing,” according to the author. Jimmy Swift followed the course of the CLYDE until it left the Upper Mississippi River and found its way to the Tennesse River, where she became a towboat for the Arrow Transportation Company and was about to be abandoned until the towboat JAYHAWKER sank in January 1939. The Tennessee Valley Sand & Gravel Company then acquired the CLYDE and ran her until the very month and year of my birth, October 1941, when she was laid up and cut down to a single-decker. Captain Frederick Way, Jr., author of WAY’S STEAM TOWBOAT DIRECTORY reported, according to Mr. Swift, “the iron hull was still afloat many years after the boat was dismantled.”

Those facts I already knew, but I was startled to read that Captain Tom H. Utter, an old-time Tennessee River pilot I worked with many times on the DELTA QUEEN, wanted to “add his bit to the story” of the CLYDE.

What a coup it would be to have that original hull returned to its place of origin, the Iowa Iron Works, now the National Mississippi River Museum at Dubuque, Iowa.

“Tom says that when Arrow acquired the CLYDE as a replacement for the JAYHAWKER, he took a crew to bring her up the Tennessee.” My friend and mentor, Captain Tommy Utter, I discovered, was the last Captain of the CLYDE!

Jimmy Swift continued: “After he (Cap’n Tommy) took the MILDRED and towed the CLYDE to a sand and gravel operation… on the backside of Hobbs Island… the operator used the CLYDE as a quarters boat. Not long after, the CLYDE sank behind Hobb’s island and as far as Capt. Tom knows, is still there.”

Talk about a revelation! A steamboat man I knew and worked with surmised that the historic, 1870s, iron hull of the original CLYDE may still be in existence behind an island on the Tennesse River. The shell is as essential to river history as any ever built and may even, yet, be waiting for its discovery and recovery. What a coup it would be to have that original hull returned to its place of origin, the Iowa Iron Works, now the National Mississippi River Museum at Dubuque, Iowa. I get goose flesh with the thought!

Wednesday was the highlight of my week on the river. How’s your’s gone?

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.

Self, Kelley, and Tommy Utter – My friend and mentor, Captain Tommy Utter, far right, I discovered, was the last Captain of the CLYDE!