The Explorer, a new $3.5 million state-of-the-art environmental classroom boat built for the not-for-profit environmental education organization RiverQuest, has finally started its long-delayed journey to its home dock on Pittsburgh's North Shore.

	Kathryn Romeu The Explorer, a floating ecology classroom, will take a bit more than two weeks to get to Pittsburgh from the Gulf Coast. Click photo for larger image.

Launched today from the Freeport, Fla., boatyard where it was built, the 90-foot-long, 150-passenger vessel is scheduled to make the trip through the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway, up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers in 16 days.

Powered by a new hybrid propulsion system and built using environmentally friendly materials, windows, coatings and paints, the boat is designed to be the flagship vessel in RiverQuest's river ecosystem education program.

"Explorer represents a truly significant paradigm shift in environmental education," said Karl Thomas, RiverQuest executive director, who is aboard the boat. "It is a tangible demonstration of our new Sustainability Education Program and it reflects the 'leading edge' nature of our mission."

Mr. Thomas said Explorer is a one-of-a-kind vessel with "extraordinary on-board technology that supports exploration and learning."

But it is also that technology that caused a more than four month delay in the delivery and seaworthiness certification of the boat, which had problems with the hybrid propulsion system. That system, built by Siemens, will power the boat using a bank of on-board batteries or a diesel engine that uses a low emission biodiesel mixture that contains up to 20 percent animal or vegetable biofuel.

RiverQuest changed its name in September from Pittsburgh Voyager. It has operated a two-boat floating classroom fleet from the Ohio River dock behind the Carnegie Science Center on the North Shore since 1995.