MS Mount Washington Resumes Sunday Brunch Cruises

The MS Mount Washington plies the waters of Lake Winnipesaukee. (Courtesy Photo)

By Thomas P. Caldwell

The Winnipesaukee Flagship Corporation, which operates Mount Washington Cruises, has announced that it is bringing back its popular Sunday Brunch Cruises this year, offering reserved seating. It allows those booking tickets online to select a table to ensure seats are available. 

The company also will offer Sunset Lobster Bakes on July 11 and August 29; Royal Fairytale Voyages on July 13 and August 10; and, in a special collaboration with the Winnipesaukee Playhouse and the Meredith Historical Society, performances of “Mutiny on the Mount”, a musical comedy written by Bob Montana, who wrote and illustrated the original “Archie” comics. Performed for the first time aboard the MS Mount Washington, the play will take place on October 1, 9, and 10.

The 230-foot MS Mount Washington operates from May through October and can accommodate as any as 1,000 passengers. It has three dance floors, full bar service, and a gift shop, and it has been a popular choice for high school proms, graduation parties, class reunions, wedding receptions, and corporate events.

Today’s ship is not the first vessel to carry the “Mount Washington” name. The original vessel was the SS Mount Washington, a wooden side-wheeler that was 178 feet in length. It was one of several steamships operating on Lake Winnipesaukee in the late 1800s, built and launched in 1872 by the Boston & Maine Railroad Company.

The Lady of the Lake, a steamship completed in 1849, had ruled Lake Winnipesaukee until the SS Mount Washington brought competition in the form of a faster way to get around the lake. In the days before automobiles, boating was the easiest way to gain access to most of the towns around the lake. Visitors and tourists arrived by train to the Weirs Beach depot and boarded the steamer to reach their destinations. While The Lady of the Lake continued in operation until 1893, she succumbed to the desire for faster transportation and, in 1985, she was filled with rocks and sunk.

The original ‘Mount’ — SS Mount Washington. (Courtesy Photo)

SS Mount Washington, meanwhile proved to be so popular that it soon was boarding more than 60,000 passengers a year. Then came the 1920s, when automobiles began surpassing the railroads as the preferred mode of transportation. The Boston & Maine Railroad, in response to that trend, sold the SS Mount Washington to the ship’s captain, Leander Lavallee, who began marketing the ship as a tourist attraction rather than simply a method of carrying cargo and passengers.

The B&M railroad station at Weirs Beach still brought in people seeking popular attractions like the dance hall and Hotel Weirs, a grand Victorian-style building, boosting the steamship as well. A fire in 1924 destroyed the Weirs Hotel, which was a blow to tourism, but still the SS Mount Washington remained popular. A second fire, however, in December 1939, proved more devastating to Lavallee. While the steamship was berthed at Weirs Beach, a fire broke out inside the railway station, with the flames spreading to the S.S. Mount Washington. The ship was destroyed, along with the railroad station and the Weirs Beach boardwalk.

Lavallee was determined to replace The Mount, but with steel in short supply because of World War II, he sought out a used vessel. He found one on Lake Champlain in Vermont: the 203-foot Chateaguay, built of iron in 1888. Enlisting local support and forming a new corporation, he purchased the Chateaguay for $20,000 in April 1940, and spent more than $125,000 to relocate it to Lake Winnipsaukee. He hired a crew from Boston General Ship & Engine Works to dismantle the hull, cut the ship into 20 sections, and transport it by flatbed railroad car from Shelburne, Vermont, to Lake Winnipesaukee in Laconia. The crew reassembled the pieces, built a new steel superstructure, and outfitted the ship, which with the changes was then 205 feet in length.

Lavallee launched the SS Mount Washington II on August 12, 1940.

The Chateaugay, which was disassembled and brought to Lake Winnipesaukee as the SS Mount Washington II. (Courtesy Photo)

Prior to the fire that destroyed the original ship, Lavallee had been planning to retire, but with the new debt from the purchase of the SS Mount Washington II, Lavallee found it necessary seek out Carl Hedblom, owner of the Boston General Ship & Engine Works, to clear the debt by purchasing the ship. The sale was completed in 1941, and the Hedblom family owned and operated the ship for the next three decades, adding the M/V Sophie C and the M/V Doris E to their fleet.

Hedblom replaced the steam engines on the SS Mount Washington II with diesel engines in 1946, rechristening the vessel the M/V Mount Washington.

In order to expand its operations, the owners extended the length of the ship by 25 feet in 1982 by cutting it in half and adding steel to the center. Maritime standards meant a reclassification of the ship from a “motor vessel” to a “motor ship” and thus, it became the MS Mount Washington.

Today, the MS Mount Washington continues to offer narrated scenic cruises from Weirs Beach at 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., Monday - Saturday, and 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Sunday. The ship also picks up passengers in Wolfeboro at 11:15 a.m. (11:30 on Sundays).

The Sunset Dinner Cruises generally take place on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, with some exceptions.

There will be a Bike Week Cruise on June 17, an Independence Day Dinner Cruise on July 4, and an Aquafest Beer Festival on July 5.

For tickets and information, see https://cruisenh.com.