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The Coast Guard might sink the Willamette Queen.

Come Dec. 31, if Willamette Queen Capt. Richard Chesbrough can’t find a way to pull his riverboat out of the water in Salem and submit it for inspection, Coast Guard officials will stop the Queen’s paddle wheel permanently.

Chesbrough said he would be more than happy to comply with Coast Guard regulations, but there is no way to get his boat from Salem into dry dock – not with the Willamette Falls Locks in Oregon City out of service. The Army Corps of Engineers closed the locks last year because the anchors that hold the gates in place are corroded.

Coast Guard officials can send divers to inspect vessels unable to get to dry dock, but the rule book only allows divers for vessels with hulls made out of steel or aluminum. The Willamette Queen’s hull is made of fiberglass.

Chesbrough said that rule is horribly outdated. “Fiberglass, as a building material, has been around for 70 years,” he said. “However, trying to get a government organization to change its rules and regulations is a real trick.”

The situation represents a change of fortune for the riverboat captain. Plans to build a $9 million foot bridge across Willamette Slough promised to be a windfall for Chesbrough. Salem officials talked about paying him $50,000 a year for five years if the proposed bridge kept him from taking passengers along the slough.

Now the inspection issue threatens to put him and his wife Barbara out of business. “This would devastate us,” said the retired minister. “We have everything we own invested in the boat. It’s our retirement project.”

If he is forbidden to travel the river, Chesbrough said he might turn the Queen into a floating restaurant, but that would mean a high overhead. Besides, he said, people don’t visit the Queen for the dining ambiance. “That’s part of the fun of being on a riverboat, to go on a trip,” he added.

Coast Guard officials are not budging. A request for an exemption is making its way through the chain of command and is now before the admiralty in Washington, D.C. Members of the Passenger Vessel Association are lobbying on behalf of Chesbrough.

Russell Burg, the assistant chief of the Coast Guard Marine Safety Inspection Division, sees no ready solutions for Chesbrough. Passenger vessels with fiberglass hulls must be inspected in dry dock every five years. Divers cannot not detect problems with fiberglass hulls, he said.

“The association is saying maybe it’s time to change the regulations,” Chesbrough said. “We’re all on the same page. We want to make sure the boat is nice and safe.”

He added the safety of the vessel is not really a concern. It was inspected in dry dock two years ago before the locks were shut down. It has since undergone underwater inspections. “It’s in fine shape,” he said.