3/16/2023 0 Comments Vintage aluminum runabout![]() The Tennessee River is impounded by nine dams with navigational locks. "We made it back, and neither one of us had a black eye," McNew said. The boat survived the shakedown cruise, and so did their friendship. While McNew knows boats inside and out, McClanahan is still learning the difference between port and starboard, and bow and stern. Last fall, McClanahan and McNew took the boat on a 130-mile shakedown cruise on the Tennessee River from Kingston to Chattanooga and back. "I've got to keep the aesthetics going," McClanahan said. For his part, McClanahan outfitted the Little Bastard with a new stainless steel steering wheel and a vintage-looking arch that separates the driver from the passenger section. The navigational equipment was McNew's idea. ![]() They've installed a marine radio, and they'll have a GPS unit to pinpoint their exact location. The runabout has a brand-new 4-stroke outboard motor and cruises at about 25 miles per hour. Being a film buff, he named it the "Little Bastard" after the silver Porsche Spyder that carried the movie actor James Dean to his grave on Sept. McClanahan purchased the classic runabout two years ago in Owsley, Ky., from a man who kept it in a shed. McClanahan is a district judge in three eastern Kentucky counties, but in the 1970s he operated three small movie theaters, one of them in Cumberland Gap, Tenn. McNew runs a dry dock on Norris Lake near the Union/Claiborne county line that sells, stores and repairs boats. "It leaks about one quart every 24 hours - just enough to dampen the bottom," McNew said. The boat's name is the Little Bastard, and like a lot of boats with rivet construction, it has a tendency to leak. They'll be traveling in an aluminum boat powered by a 30-horsepower outboard motor. At Kentucky Lake, they may follow a navigation canal and continue to Nashville by way of Lake Barkley and the Cumberland River. They figure it'll take them six to eight days to reach Kentucky Lake. Ralph McClanahan II and Randall "Turkey" McNew plan to leave Knoxville this morning. That's a long boat ride, especially if the boat happens to be a 16-foot aluminum runabout built in 1969. From its headwaters above Knoxville until it flows into the Ohio River at Paducah, Ky., the Tennessee River stretches about 652 miles.
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