Steve Smith -- you can call him Red Green -- bought a 46-foot houseboat a dozen years ago and parked it on Hamilton Harbour.

He never went anywhere. "Easier on gas," Smith says.

He and wife Morag and friends would drift over to the far shore of the West Bay, drop anchor off Carrolls Point for a few hours and slip home as darkness fell, loving the twinkle of the Hamilton skyline.

Last summer was especially fine aboard the Queen B. But the boat was mainly for entertaining. With a grandchild on the scene, Smith thought it would be nice to have something bigger, with proper bedrooms for the family.

He got something bigger all right. And that is why he has been stranded for weeks in a corner of Kentucky, trying to get his new boat home.

The Mississippi has been at its mightiest this year due to heavy rains across the Midwest. That rampaging river has been full of debris flying by -- 60-foot trees, pieces of buildings, refrigerators.

Some say it could be months before Smith can put that boat on the big river. Others say he should never have tried.

"I love problem solving," he says. "I love it when things go wrong." Exactly what you'd expect from the man inside Red Green.

We reach him aboard the new houseboat, tied up in Grand Rivers, population 300, just east of the Mississippi. The mayor has just come over to shake his hand. Thanks to Kentucky Educational Television, Red Green is known here. Marine mechanics pull out their duct tape and smile.

The new boat is 79 feet long. They're hard to find in Canada, Smith explains, because they're not good for the Great Lakes -- unless you're going to sit in Hamilton Harbour for months on end.

Down where he is now, there are lots of man-made lakes. On Lake Cumberland, for instance, are 2,400 houseboats, including some very big ones.

Smith bought one of those. He's not saying what it cost, "but it's not nearly what you'd think. Half the price of a cottage."

It's nine years old, has four bedrooms, a salon, an office, its own sewage treatment plant and water purification system -- though Smith isn't sure he's ready to try that in Hamilton.

The boat was christened the Bacardi Breeze, but that will be changing to the King B.

The plan was to sail over to the Mississippi, coming in south of St. Louis. They expected the current against them to be no more than three knots an hour. As the King B moves comfortably on still water at eight knots, there would be a net forward speed of five knots.

On July 2, they set out for the Mississippi. From one of the e-mails he has been sending to dozens of fascinated friends: "Had an easy 23 miles up the Cumberland River, past the Kentucky State Prison, home of 160 executions with two more on deck, and arrived in Grand Rivers.

"After getting gas we went to our slip but one of our engines locked in reverse at full throttle which had us spinning backwards out of control in the midst of several million-dollar yachts, many of which had the owners sitting on them."

They averted disaster but came to realize that true disaster awaited the King B on the swollen Mississippi. The current was seven knots, which meant the boat would be nearly standing still.

Smith looked into having the boat towed as far as Chicago, gateway to the Great Lakes. But that would cost $100,000.

Now, however, Plan B is in place. Yesterday was a long drive home to Hamilton. Smith will head back to Kentucky in 10 days.

Down there, crews will strip off the boat's upper deck so the King B fits under highway bridges. Then the boat will be loaded onto a tractor-trailer for a 1,000-kilometre road trip.

The boat will be hanging about six feet over the shoulder of the road. "Better warn the hitchhikers," Smith says. The convoy will include two escort vehicles, plus a motor home towing a trailer carrying the boat's roof.

There will be a layover in Erie, Pa., for reassembly, and then a retired navy guy named Captain Fred will pilot the King B across Lake Erie, up the Welland Canal and home. The whole exercise will cost about $25,000.

That triumphant return should take place by Labour Day weekend. If luck changes for Hamilton's most famous handyman, it will be a summery September on our handsome harbour.

StreetBeat appears Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.

pwilson@thespec.com

905-526-3391