Day 28: Columbus to Warsaw (anchor), United States

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Day 200
Thursday, October 30, 2025 at 10:40 AM
☁️ 10 °C
Altitude: 319 m
United States Atlanta 33.748501, -84.387133°44’55” N 84°23’14” W
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Day 28: Columbus to Warsaw (anchor)
October 30 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C
Sweet Home Alabama! Lynyrd Skynyrd sings us into this section of the western rivers voyage. A leisurely breakfast indeed, then thrusting of the dock at 0800 to find that we're No. 5 of five vessels inching out through the marina entrance... we have a foot to spare under the keel. The Aberdeen Lock is right here, so we float around for 20 min before we get the green from the Lockmaster. We're No. 5 in and (after a 23-ft drop) No. 5 out, but by accord with the other captains, "45 North" takes up lead station, and we forge on at a steady 9-10 mph, Rosie at the helm. 23 miles to go to the John C. Stennis Lock & Dam.

We Lock through John Stennis with a minor delay (waiting for a Nordic Tug straggler to get themselves in behind us) and continue down-river. 28 miles to the Tom Bevill Lock & Dam and a further 32 miles to the Warsaw Cutoff, and our anchorage.

Last year, Preston tells me, there was no-one here... this year there's 4 bloopers already in the good anchorage spots. We amble around for 15 min looking for an acceptable and not-too-deep anchorage, and finally secure same.

When Preston is satisfied the anchor is holding, the instruction is, "Let the party begin." 'Finished with Engines', and we thus repair to the cockpit for (appropriately) cocktails.

We're having a chicken casserole tonight, but it's no more than we deserve...Read more
Traveler The vertical sticks ahead mark the shallow, skinny, channel.
4wReply
Traveler The Montgomery” was a steam-powered vessel built in 1925 or 1926 (depending upon your source), retired in 1982, and now a floating museum. The vessel was used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to remove snags (fallen trees) from rivers to keep them clear for navigation. It is one of only two remaining steam-powered sternwheel snagboats in the United States and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1989. Montgomery cleared snags and obstructions from the Coosa, Alabama, Apalachicola, Chattahoochee, Flint, Black Warrior, and Tombigbee Rivers until her retirement. After retirement, the boat underwent restoration and is now on display as a museum ship. The vessel was powered by two high-pressure non-condensing Joy-valve steam engines, built by the Charleston Drydock & Machine Company. Each engine had a 14-inch cylinder with a 72-inch stroke and produced 325 bhp, with a single Scotch marine boiler providing steam at 210 psi. The boiler burned coal when the boat was new, but after WWII she was converted to burn No. 2 diesel fuel. The engines were connected to an 18-foot diameter, 20-foot-wide stern paddlewheel. Each piston pushed a heavy crosshead along a slide attached atop the cylinder timbers (actually steel structural members that supported the cylinders and crossheads at their forward end and the paddlewheel shaft at the aft end. The crosshead and slide were unusual in that they had a curved upper surface, thought to assist in centering the action of the piston. The crosshead pushed and pulled the pitman (an overgrown connecting rod)--a feature of stern-wheelers--that turned the crank and thus the paddlewheel.
4wReply
Traveler On the Tenn-Tom Waterway - the Tombigbee River section.
4wReply
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