Red River Update: August 6

Paddlewheel

Monday, August 6, 2001

The river continued low on Monday, with less current than previously. The water level had risen by a few inches, with only the end of the starboard paddlewheel shaft exposed above the surface.

Monday was a full schedule day again, with teams working to complete and refine drawings made previously. Daniel Seib, a graduate student at Indiana University Bloomington (http:www.iub.edu), worked with field school student Cecile Brothers of Long Beach City College (http://www.lbcc.cc.ca.us/) to refine their drawings of the starboard hull framing just aft of the flywheel trunk. Recent natural scouring, along with dredging by the project team, has exposed the starboard side of the hull from the keel, along the centerline, to the upper edge of the hull where the wale has broken off. This section of hull offers a valuable look at how the boat was constructed. Additionally, as the stern of the boat is broken to port and twisted, the section of the hull immediately adjacent to the flywheel is relatively intact and easy to understand.

On the port side of the boat (toward the Texas bank of the river), scouring has partially exposed the boat’s paddlewheel timbers and one of the flanges, the iron discs that held the wooden paddlewheel arms in place. In their first dive of the day, Lucius Martin of Long Beach City College and Howard McKinness of the Oklahoma Historical Society began dredging to clear away additional sand. Their objective was both to document the paddlewheel and to determine if there was a third ring of paddlewheel arms on that wheel, outboard of the two that have been observed. "There were a lot of buried snags on that hub that we had to cut loose," Martin said, "to get the dredge head in to work. We got most of that cut away, and then Brandon [Talley] and Marlo [Thomas] were able to come in after us and finish that job." Talley (Southeastern Oklahoma State University, http://www.sosu.edu/) and Thomas (Long Beach City College) confirmed the presence of a third ring outboard of the first two, and indications of what may the paddlewheel support structure outboard of the wheel itself.

Another team worked to refine existing drawings of the heavy-timber trunk surrounding the boat’s central flywheel. The starboard side of the trunk could be traced forward for almost 25 feet ahead of the flywheel shaft before disappearing into the sandy bottom. This team also re-trilaterated the precise positions of several key points on the boat’s central machinery section. Getting these positions determined precisely is crucial, as almost all the other datum points on the vessel are derived from those on the machinery.

One crew member lost a gold and platinum wedding ring today when it got caught on a snag, but found it again about 45 minutes later—a remarkable feat, given the six-inch visibility and shifting riverbed.

This update is sponsored by the PAST Foundation and the Oklahoma Historical Society. It may be freely redistributed without modification for non-commercial purposes.

Dr. Sheli Smith (foreground) and John Davis discuss the arrangement of the machinery associated with the boat's paddlewheel.	Smith sketches the shape of the cam attached to the paddlewheel shaft. The cam acuated the valves that ran the engine.	Christine Chan of Long Beach City College (LBCC) and the University of California-San Diego.	Lucius Martin (pointing) of LBCC describes a feature of the wreck to Smith and Dr. Annalies Corbin (standing) and Scott Whitesides (in water) of East Carolina University.