(Graphic Illustration Generated With the Use of ChatGPT)

MARIETTA — Sternwheelers of various shapes and sizes are lined up along the Ohio River Levee in downtown Marietta to participate in the 2025 Ohio River Sternwheel Festival.

Captains of sternwheelers often travel hundreds of miles, either on the river or the road, to attend the Sternwheel Festival each year, with many of the vessels coming into town to dock at the levee in the week leading up to the event.

In addition to seeing a line of sternwheelers docked along the shoreline during the three-day festival, visitors will also get to see some of them in action.

Each year, a number of the sternwheel boats participate in the James E. Sands Memorial Race on the final afternoon of the festival. This year’s sternwheel races will run from 1-2 p.m. Sunday.

The races are named in honor of James Sands of Marietta, builder and captain of the original Valley Gem sternwheeler. He was one of the first captains to participate in the festival and its sternwheel races, which were named in his honor following his death in 1998.

His son, J.J. Sands, continues to operate the second Valley Gem on the Muskingum and Ohio rivers around Marietta. The first Valley Gem was built in 1973, and its larger replacement was built in 1989.

On Sunday morning before the races, all of the participating captains meet together to work out who will be racing in each of the six heats. The captains are familiar with the capabilities of their own boats and match up by speed and size in six different groups.

The course starts in the area of the Ohio River near the head of Marietta Island, upriver from the levee. The race runs for a mile-and-a-half to the finish line at the downriver end of the entertainment barge where it is moored to the levee.

The races are a throwback to the Steamboat Era of the 1840s to the early 1900s when steamboats were a major transportation source for moving people and goods around the United States. Instead of being for fun, the steamboat races of those days were the main form of advertising for their captains and owners. The faster the boat, the more likely it was to be chosen to carry cargo and passengers.