Excerpts • Backstage • The Author • Reviews • Order

That’s when I caught my first glimpse of the steamboat. The sternwheeler that would soon be under my command.

 Rajah Brooke had been right about her dimensions, some seventy feet from bow to stern and three decks high. On the second level, a white iron railing encircled a passenger deck. Perched above all was the tall wheelhouse, with windows all around, and behind it a whaleboat swinging on davits.

Every ship has a character and spirit all her own, one that’s gradually revealed to the sailor that keeps her company. For that reason, first meetings can be deceiving. Even so, I looked on Lorelei with a little disappointment. She was not top of the line. She was of an earlier generation of saltwater steamboats, perhaps twenty years old, and therefore built prayerfully, broad-beamed for stability but with a shallow keel, for her makers had also intended her for river work.

Despite these ambiguities of design, she looked trim and seaworthy and one had to give her credit for being a survivor in a punishing climate. Her decks and hull had recently been painted and this bright, white gown offered the hope that, though a spinster, she might yet charm a suitor or two.

Lorelei I said aloud, hoping I might be charmed. Lorelei.

from Ghost Eater

For those curious about Lorelei, the ship in our story, I want to first dispel the notion that she is any sense a double-stacked Mississippi river steamboat along the order of the Delta Queen or the Robert E. Lee. She is nothing so grandiose. On the other hand, she is not as small as another famous river steamboat, the thirty foot long African Queen.

 The Lorelei’s seventy foot length and twenty-four feet wide beam makes for a modest craft as river steamers go. She has to be small and maneuverable enough to travel up a winding and unpredictable river like the Asahan, the primary setting of our story.

The stern wheeler is the perfect ship for such a job as her draught is shallow. The stern wheel itself is more accommodating for this task than the side wheeler since it takes up less space and is easier to repair, although it lacks the side-wheeler’s greater maneuverability.

Another feature of Lorelei is that she was built to travel in salt water as well as fresh water. For a ship of her period, built in the late 1840s, this meant, primarily, having the engine covered and housed to protect it from salt water corrosion. Her marine steam engine is capable of burning both wood and coal for fuel. For ocean-going stability, she has a proper keel as opposed to a flat bottom hull.

 I’ve scoured various books on the subject and the internet to come up with an image that approximates the look of Lorelei. The closest one to my conception of the ship is this image of a Canadian sternwheeler of late 19th century vintage. She is appears to have greater length, but has a similar design, with a forward cargo hold on the main deck, a passenger deck above, and a wheelhouse surmounting all.