Riverboat
Modern riverboats are generally screw (propeller)
driven, with pairs of diesel engines of several thousand horsepower.
While a ferryboat is often used to cross a river, a riverboat is used
to traverse it, while carrying passengers and cargo, or both, for revenue.
A riverboat is a specialized watercraft designed for operating on inland
waterways.
Model of a shallow draft stern wheel riverboat,
operated early 20th century - click for more information about this
particular craft Rivers present special hazards to vessels. They usually
have varying water flows that alternately lead to high speed water flows
or protruding rock hazards.
Changing siltation patterns may cause the sudden appearance of shoal
waters, and often floating or sunken logs and trees (called snags) can
endanger the hulls and propulsion of riverboats. Riverboats are generally
of shallow draft, being broad of beam and rather square in plan, with
a low freeboard and high topsides.
Riverboats can survive with
this type of configuration as they do not have to survive the high winds
or large waves that are seen on large lakes, seas or oceans. In most
nations, riverboats are tourist attractions. In a few countries, such
as China, riverboats provide authentic passenger and cargo transport
— something a traveler (as opposed to a tourist) would consider for
transport.
The riverine cargo carrying
tasks once assigned to riverboats are now largely handled by barges,
tied together, and pushed by a towboat.
Early riverboats in China
on the Yangtze River were hauled upstream by crews of towmen pulling
ropes. In the sheer canyons of the Three Gorges the towmen used paths
carved into sheer cliffs or struggled through streambeds in places of
low water.
The most famous early riverboats
were on the rivers of the midwestern and central southern United States,
on the Mississippi, Ohio and Missouri rivers in the early 19th century.
It is these early steam driven river craft that typically come to mind
when "steamboat" is mentioned, as these were powered by burning wood,
with iron boilers drafted by a pair of tall smokestacks belching smoke
and cinders, and twin double acting pistons driving a large paddlewheel
at the stern churning foam.
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