Above, Allen Dunlap takes the helm of the Cheng Tze, a sternwheeler with a wood-burning steam engine, to tour Siltcoos Lake. At left, Don Mentzer prepares to head out of a Westlake marina.

Visitors to Siltcoos Lake gather to “let off steam” with their custom steamboats.

Residents of Westlake awoke on a recent weekend morning to the sound of small boats chugging across Siltcoos Lake, talking to each other through short blasts from their whistles.

The boats, about six in all, range in size from about 15 to 20 feet, each different in color and embellishment. They all arrived at the lake for a week’s visit, their owners, boaters and boat builders by hobby, have been coming to Siltcoos and the Westlake Resort for the past four years.

The boats are custom-built, some home-built — with such names as Skoo-kum, Reward, IdlTime, Cheng Tze and Fake-A-Loo — and run on steam engines. Their sound on the lake is a quiet “chug” accompanied by the occasional puff of steam and a mellow-pitched whistle.

Their owners, all retirees, seem to have similar dispositions as they gather off and on through the year, go boating, tinker with the boats, and share friendship. They all also belong to the Northwest Steam Society.

Charlie Coghill is 69. He hauls his boat to Klamath and Tenmile lakes, and now Siltcoos. His boat is constructed from the lifeboat hull of the Liberty ship, the Simon Willard, and his rebuilt steamboat carries the same name. He also built the boilers for some of the other boats in the group in his machine shop at home.

Don Mentzer built the engine for Coghill’s boat. Mentzer is retired from a life in the timber industry, and he and his wife, like the other couples, enjoy going to gatherings like this throughout the West. He has always been good at building things and one of his steam engines looks as finely built as a clock. IdlTime is about 16 feet and built from a steel lifeboat.

There are 80 to 100 steamboats running on western lakes, say the boaters.

For the complete article see the 07-24-2010 issue.

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