Can the big wheels keep on turning? A well-known fleet of paddle-wheelers that evoke the Proud Marys and Showboats that plied the rivers of early America face being cut up for scrap after a bankruptcy sale that has the cruise industry abuzz.
American Queen, the largest paddlewheel steamboat ever built, is among four river cruise ships of the former American Queen Voyages that were bought by rival American Cruise Lines in an auction. Two of the ships are already officially headed to the wreckers, while American Queen and a sister paddle-wheeler also appear doomed in what one cruise historian is calling “a game of catch and kill, Mississippi style.”
ACL was the only active bidder for the ships at the bankruptcy auction . It paid $2.15-million for the 436-passenger American Queen, that cost $65-million to build in 1995. AQL also snagged American Countess, for $1.6-mllion, American Duchess for just $200,000 and American Empress, for $1.6-million. (At the same auction, John Waggoner, the former head of AQV bought two Great Lakes cruise ships that he plans to return to service in 2025 as Victory I and Victory II ).
Read it all in The Cruisington Times