The Swan Boats are a fleet of pleasure boats operating on the lake of the Public Garden in Boston, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

. The boats have been operating since 1877, and have become a cultural icon

Cultural icon

A cultural icon can be a symbol, logo, picture, name, face, person, building or other image that is readily recognized and generally represents an object or concept with great cultural significance to a wide cultural group...

 for the city. They operate from April until September.

Robert Paget created the first swan boats in 1877, reputedly inspired by Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

's Lohengrin

Lohengrin (opera)

Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...

. The oldest of the six boats in service date back to 1910 and 1920 respectively. The Paget family still own and operate the Swan Boats, and the design was copyrighted and trademarked in the 1980s.

The current Swan Boats carry around 20 passengers, seated on transverse benches, on a 15 minute figure of eight voyage around the lake. The boats are 30 ft (9.1 m), and are formed of two pontoons in a catamaran

Catamaran

A catamaran is a type of multihulled boat or ship consisting of two hulls, or vakas, joined by some structure, the most basic being a frame, formed of akas...

 arrangement. They are manually propelled by a crewmember, often a high school or college student, who pedals and steers the craft from within the swan outline shell at the stern. The pedals drive a paddle wheel

Paddle wheel

A paddle wheel is a waterwheel in which a number of scoops are set around the periphery of the wheel. It has several usages.* Very low lift water pumping, such as flooding paddy fields at no more than about height above the water source....

 situated between the boat's twin hulls.

The Swan Boats are famed for their appearance in the stories of Make Way For Ducklings

Make Way For Ducklings

Make Way for Ducklings is a children's picture book written and illustrated by Robert McCloskey. First published in 1941, the book tells the story of a pair of mallard ducks who decide to raise their family on an island in the lagoon in Boston Public Garden, a park in the center of Boston,...

and The Trumpet of the Swan

The Trumpet of the Swan

The Trumpet of the Swan is a children's novel by E.B. White published in 1970. It tells the story of Louis, a Trumpeter Swan born without a voice and trying to overcome it by learning to play a trumpet, always trying to impress a beautiful pen named Serena.-Plot summary:In Canada in the spring of...

, and are often portrayed in tourist guides and other books about the city.
In 1954 service was interrupted during the summer for the first time when city officials drained the lake due to the death of thirty ducks due to an infection.

External links

• Swan Boats official web site