Dinner boat temporarily grounded for maintenance

MOUNT ARLINGTON – Miss Lotta, the new dinner boat on Lake Hopatcong, spent a portion of Tuesday morning on land after two massive cranes hoisted the 55-foot long SkipperLiner out of the lake and onto wooden blocks for “preventative maintenance.”
According to Nick Glenney, general manager of Camp Six, the parent company of Lake Hopatcong Cruises and Miss Lotta, there were two three-inch generator exhaust through holes located at the backend of the boat that were never attended to during the total restoration of the boat this past winter.
“The steering wheel, the two bathroom sinks and these two through holes were the only original parts of the boat we did not touch during the restoration,” said Glenney.
The 70-thousand pound boat was hoisted from the water at Lee’s Park Marina using two cranes from HW Farren Company of Randolph. A 100-ton crane and a 275-ton crane worked simultaneously to raise the boat from the water, over a chain link fence and onto blocks near the main gate of the park. The boat launch at Lee’s Park was not effected by the activity surrounding Miss Lotta.
Master welder Gery Magura, owner of Kenvil Weldery and Machine in Ledgewood then went to work welding steel plates over each of the holes. Magura also did all the welding and metal repair work during the original restoriation this past winter.
While the boat was out of the water Miss Lotta was given a thorough visual inspection, got washed down and had her paint touched up. The entire operation took less than four hours and Miss Lotta was back in her slip in Nolan’s Point just before 1pm.