Date Added: 04 September 2020
The stern wheel steamer "Louisiana" is a ship as it was in the time around 1870 and thus Mark Twain's on the Mississippi. They were recommended wherever shallow as well as narrow fairways prevailed and had no keel, which made them difficult in terms of stability and manoeuvrability. In addition, with their high superstructure they are extremely susceptible to wind. In this model, the flat hull made of hardwood was first split lengthwise into two parts for passage through the bottleneck. In order to be able to press the two halves together without a gap, they were placed on a narrow carrier plate into which four shortened nails were driven. The three decks, also made of hardwood, and the cabin blocks in the middle of the two lower decks remained separated until the individual parts were "married" in the bottle, otherwise the individual layers would no longer have fitted through the bottle opening. The third deck, on the other hand, could be used in one piece as its all-round railing is not even half as high as the supports of the decks below. Only the wheelhouse and the bridge leading to it came after separately of course, as well as the two high chimneys.
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