According to a news report on May 20th, efforts to salvage the sternwheeler MARY WOODS No. 2 at Newport, Arkansas have stalled due to unsafe conditions. River Diving and Salvage, Bloomsdale, Missouri, has been contracted to raise the vessel. The boat has sustained a tremendous amount of damage due to being almost completely submerged in the White River for three months. The superstructure has shifted on the hull, making it dangerous for workers to enter the sunken towboat. Park Superintendent Mark Ballard is quoted as saying that the boat's damage is 100 times worse than when she was struck by a tornado in 1997, causing destruction that took five years to restore. The boat's pilotwheel has been cut out of the pilothouse and other artifacts have been recovered. The entire superstructure will need to be rebuilt. It sounds very discouraging.
2010 has proven true the old "hoodoo" of boats named with "M" having bad luck. Not only the MARY WOODS No.2, but the MISSISSIPPI (Becky Thatcher), sunk and scrapped at Pittsburgh in February, the MAMIE S. BARRETT (rapidly deteriorating in a Louisiana bayou) and, of course, the MISSISSIPPI QUEEN, now in the scrapyard.
2010 has proven true the old "hoodoo" of boats named with "M" having bad luck. Not only the MARY WOODS No.2, but the MISSISSIPPI (Becky Thatcher), sunk and scrapped at Pittsburgh in February, the MAMIE S. BARRETT (rapidly deteriorating in a Louisiana bayou) and, of course, the MISSISSIPPI QUEEN, now in the scrapyard.
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