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Save the steamboat Delta Queen ~ a private initiative to support this historic landmark Page 6 of 8 information. A very good article just showed up today at Cruise Mates: Loosing the Delta ueen by Nori Muster of steamboats.com. As most of you probably know, Nori is the daughter of Bill Muster, who was one of the most important people in the 1970's Save the Delta Queen campaign. The article tells the story of this campaign with a lot of details and is very well worth reading. On Aug. 8 Associate Press has sent out a News Alert about the Delta Queen. Unfortunately our campaign is not mentioned at all. But it's a first, important step to get broader attention for the issue. And the word is also spreading in the blogger scene. Definitely worth reading is John Armor's posting "Mark_Twain_Says._Congress is an_ Idiot" at Free Republic. His central statement is: "I'm not suggesting that the Delta Queen should be written into the Constitution to protect it forever from the neglect of Congress. I AM suggesting that if you care about America 's greatest river, the Mississippi, if you 've ever seen or heard the Delta Queen plying the waters of that great River, live, on TV or in movies, you should act. " If you meet or know a local newspaper reporter, encourage him or her to write his own story about the Delta Queen. I think this is a story worth watching for every journalist in this country -there is some potential for unexpected scoops and there is a lot of emotions and patriotism in this story. This is what reporters usually love. I know, because I'm a journalist, too ... What is Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS)? Aug 4, 2007 7 Comments » There is much discussion about SOLAS, so I did some research to find out what exactly it is. SOLAS describes two different regulations -one is the "International Convention for Safety of Life at Sea", the other is the Public Law 89-777 from 1966, popular name: "Safety at Sea Act" or "Safety of Life at Sea Act". The international convention called SOLAS applies only to ships engaged on international voyages. That means, the Delta Queen is not directly effected by this. What effects the Delta Queen though is the Safety at Sea Act (P.L. 89-777). P.L. 89-777 includes that passenger vessels "having berth or stateroom accomodations for 50 or more passengers" have to be compliant with the SOLAS regulations of 1960 and some ammendments. (Thanks very much to the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium and Dubuque County Historical Society for sending us a copy of P.L. 89-777). The DQ was granted atwo-years delay in enactment in an amendment directly to this law, and again a two-years delay was issued in 1968. 1970 was the year of the first big "Save the Delta Queen" campaign. Despite all efforts (see steamboats.com for details) the campaign almost failed. Eventually the Delta Queen got a new 3-years exemption. After that an exemption was re-issued several times, including the exemption that is now expiring in November 2008. International Convention SOLAS The "International Convention for Safety of Life at Sea" exists already since 1914. This first version was passed in response to the Titanic disaster in 1912. Since then there had been several versions and since 1948 the International Maritime Organization~IMO) develops and maintains SOLAS. The http://www.save-the-delta-queen.org/ 10/26/2007