1975 saw a new hull being built on a deck barge at the Millvale landing. Unlike the Tar Baby, this hull was built to the same dimensions as the old drum boat.  The idea was to reuse the existing drive and wheel. This boat, when completed, seemed safe enough to load family and friends for our first big boat trip, 75 miles up the Allegheny River. Before leaving, we needed a boat name to use when calling the locks. We decided on Thumper because of the shaking when underway. This sounded like a rabbit and not to impressive so we added 2 initials picked off of a passing towboat the ‘E. L. Crain’. The Thumper participated in numerous regatta parades in the Pittsburgh area. We decorated her as a birthday cake, a Hawaiian shack with palm trees, and an old packet boat with working smoke stacks.  In 1977, we made our first trip to Marietta, Ohio to attend their sternwheel regatta.  The trip was 175 miles each way and we ran at about 6 mph.  It was here we got our love of paddle wheel boats and paddlewheel boat racings.