Nashville Riverboats Christen 'Capitol' on the Cumberland

For a while, Nashville has had its proverbial back to the river, according to District 19 Metro Councilmember Jacob Kupin. 

“It’s exciting to see us turn around,” Kupin told the Scene at the opening of the Cumberland River’s latest attraction on Wednesday.

So it made sense that Kupin and other city officials turned their backs to Lower Broadway, facing their podium toward attendees standing on Capitol, a newly christened paddlewheel riverboat.  

Nashville Riverboats founder, captain and owner Troy Manthey, a New Orleans native, said he has “river water running through his veins.” 

Nashville Riverboats will offer sightseeing cruises starting at around $40 and dinner cruises for $80. It docks at the bank of Riverfront Park, where goods were once unloaded onto First Avenue to be sold on Second Avenue, and later Market Street. 

“Before Nashville was the Music City, it was a river city,” Manthey said in his remarks at the event. “Steamboats are the reason the city was here, and it's how the city evolved and developed.” 

Captain Joy Manthey had her work cut out for her Wednesday — not in steering the vessel, but rather cracking a thick bottle of Tennessee bourbon against the boat's hull. It took several strikes. A trailblazer for women in her field, she also previously was a nun.  

“Bless paddlewheel Capitol with the waters of the Tennessee River and a little Tennessee bourbon,” Joy Manthey said in a prayer. “May your love strengthen us to have the courage to navigate into the murky and uncharted waters of greater love and service to you and one another.” 

Nashville Riverboats is the latest $15 million venture from family business Manthey Hospitality, which turns 25 this year and owns Tampa, Fla.’s largest passenger vessel fleet of 18 boats. These include dining yachts, culinary cruises, water taxis and a themed “pirate ship.” 

Capitol was formerly The Spirit of Peoria, which the Mantheys' crew renovated over the past five years as they sought to strike a deal in Nashville. The 1988-built diesel boat is propelled solely by its paddlewheel. Capitol was also the name of a thermal steamboat that looms large in the family’s lore — one that Joy’s father and grandmother worked on, and on which jazz legend Louis Armstrong played. That’s why one of the floors on the Nashville boat is called the Louis Armstrong room. 

The Capitol will soon be joined by The Steamer Nashville, a steam-powered paddlewheel boat, one of only three of its kind in the country — alongside the Belle of Louisville and the Steamboat Natchez in New Orleans.  

“With both boats in operation Nashville, will have the most beautiful and authentic riverboat fleet in the United States,” Troy says. 

Manthey says the most important thing to monitor about the Cumberland River is its height, which can jump as much as a foot in an hour — rapid for a river.  

“When that happens, all the debris comes off the banks, and we have to be really careful with dodging that debris,” he says.  

This specific type of riverboat, a “sternwheeler” with one wheel in the back, is made for just that. Troy says "sidewheelers," with wheels mounted on either side, would be destroyed by debris. 

There’s also not much traffic in the Cumberland River. Besides barges and industry, there are few places to enter the river, and the Capitol directly competes with only the General Jackson Showboat out of Opry Mills — besides a few booze cruises and the Nashville Water Taxi. Nashville Riverboats has also invited the Nashville Fire Department's and the Metro Nashville Police Department's boats to dock at their bay. 

When Nashville Riverboats' new boat opens later this summer, the two will race. Nashville will also now have a boat in the annual Great Steamboat Race, part of the Kentucky Derby. Joy’s money is on the Capitol. 

“No boat can beat this boat,” she says.