User:Bruin2/MV Louisiane

MV Louisiane is a paddle-wheel steamboat whose home port is Gretna, Louisiana. Its current owner is reportedly French-America Line (FAL), a company that is also headquartered in Gretna.

History
The ship, a paddle-wheel steamboat, was built in 2000 by Vigor Works of Portland, Oregon for the Delta Queen Steamboat Company and completed at the Cascade General Inc. shipyard in Portland, Oregon. Construction started from the hull of a former (unidentified) gambling ship. Delta Queen christened it, MV Columbia Queen, which subsequently cruised the Columbia, Snake and Willamette Rivers.

In 2016, FAL purchased the boat from the U.S. Maritime Administration, and brought it to Louisiana for a complete refit in a drydock, then renamed it, with the intent of cruising the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. It was inaugurated in August 2016.

MV Louisiane has a length of 220 feet (67 meters) a beam of 66 feet (20 meters) and a displacement of 1600 gross tons. Its rated speed is 12 miles per hour (19 km per hour). It is reportedly designed to carry 150 passengers and a crew of 70. There are a total of 78 cabins, arranged on three decks. (There is a fourth deck that has no cabins.)

Cruise cancelled in 2017
FAL had promoted a nine-day luxury cruise from Gretna up the Red River, which was to depart on November 28, 2017. Apparently it had already sold reservations to a number of prospective passengers for prices starting at $3,800. However, on November 23, 2017, station KTBS reported that FAL had announced that the cruise had been cancelled. Reporter Gary May said that FAL's chairman, Christopher Kyte, had e-mailed KTBS, explaining that had been engaged to serve as a floating hotel in the Caribbean as part of a Federal program for hurricane relief.