On June 20 the “Cooper Girls” group had an afternoon ride on the Mississippi River in what many call a cigarette boat. It is powered by two 350 hp Chevrolet engines.
Briefly to explain, Jo and her sisters, Arla and Barbara, were known as the Cooper Girls when growing up in Moline Il. Barbara’s son Brian lives in Moline. He took Arla, Jo, Barbara, Mike Williams and me on a ride on the Mississippi River in his boat in the 10 mile pool between dams 14 and 15 on the Mississippi. The boat gets up on a plane at about 35 mph and will go as high as 70 mph. Fortunately the water was calm on our ride so Brian could demonstrate its speed.
We gathered at Brian's home where he had the boat trailer hooked up to his pickup all ready to go.
After launching, Brian first took us up river to dam 14 shown here (right) near Le Claire Iowa and Port Byron IL.
Fever is the name of the model of the boat made by Fountain.
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This is the wake of the boat as it is moving well over 60 mph.
Here are Mike Williams, Arla Olson, Barbara Williams, her dog Boomer and Jo.
Our skipper, Brian, at the controls. All of the gauges and controls are necessary on this twin-engined boat. I was surprised to learn that the speedometer relies on data from GPS satellites to compute its speed.
Mike, Boomer, I and Arla also rode in the back seat for a while, leaving Jo and Barbara to share a front seat.
The downstream part of our ride took up past the General’s home at the Rock Island Arsenal. It is the next to largest home owned by the U S government, second only to the White House. The commander of the Arsenal and his family actually live there.
At the left is dam 15 and at the right is the skyline of Davenport Iowa.
Brian took us onto this canal on the Iowa side of the river to show us a development of homes with piers giving boating access to the Mississippi.
He skillfully maneuvered the boat to turn around in the narrow canal with one engine in forward and the other in reverse.
It was a great day for a boat ride
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