“It’s a great place to tell about the birth and death of a mountain,” said McDonough of the lake tours, which will be offered seven times daily through early September. “It’s like a history book – you’ve got the story laid out right before you. Those lava flows on the inner caldera speak of a very different world. It’s like a time capsule, looking at those high rock walls.”
Dominie Lenz, general manager of Xanterra’s park operations, believes visitors will appreciate the improvements in the new boats, which were intentionally designed to look like the historic boats.
“It is our goal to provide our visitors with a fabulous view of the lake, knowing they are doing it safely while preserving the environment,” Lenz said.
The three new fiberglass boats will replace four wooden boats built in the 1960s and ’70s. The old boats were replaced because they had become less mechanically reliable. The new boats have muffled engines to minimize engine noise, speaker systems that will allow passengers to better hear interpretive talks by park rangers, and several environmental features, such as sensors that contain fuel and other pollutants.
Custom-built for Xanterra by Modutech Marine of Tacoma, Wash., the new fleet also features built-in buoyancy chambers that will prevent vessels from sinking, even if swamped. The hulls, seven to 10 layers of fiberglass up to an inch thick, will be less prone to leaks and easier to repair than wooden hulls.
The engines are sealed in compartments so water cannot reach them and mix with fuel or oil. ”Smart” bilge pumps and filters will prevent petroleum from being ejected into the lake.
Each boat is powered by a 315-horsepower, 5.7-liter Vortec engine built by Marine Power. The engines use electronic fuel injection.
“It was a very good and safe decision to get these boats,” said park official Mike Justin.
Tourist boats have taken visitors on Crater Lake since 1907. The earliest known boat trip on the lake happened in the late 1870s when Jim Sutton, a mayor of Jacksonville, led a group that paddled a canvas boat to Wizard Island. Other early trips were led by William Steel in the 1880s.
Two of the four boats flown out Tuesday – the Paul Herron and Rudy Wilson – were built on Wizard Island. The Ralph Peyton and James Griffin, which was renamed the Glen Happel in the late 1980s, were built in Portland and, following champagne christenings, flown from the rim to the lake in July 1972. At the time, the total cost for building each of the two boats was $30,000.
Herron was a boat operator for 27 years, and Wilson designed the boats and managed the boat operation for more than 15 years. Peyton was president of Crater Lake Lodge, a former park concessionaire, for nearly 20 years. Griffin was co-lodge president for 14 years until being bought out by Peyton. Happel was the concession’s long-time operations chief who later became its manager.
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