RiverQuest Click photo for larger image. Video link: The new Green Boat Watch a video of the launching at the Freeport Shipyard, Fla.

Pittsburgh Voyager has a new name and a new boat, but because of lengthy seaworthiness checks in Florida, the delivery of the boat has been postponed.

The not-for-profit science and environmental education organization that has operated a two-boat fleet from the dock behind the Carnegie Science Center on the North Shore since 1995 announced yesterday that it is changing its name to RiverQuest.

The organization's name change reflects the increased amount of programming it's providing outside of Pittsburgh, said Karl Thomas, who became its executive director 18 months ago, about the time the name change discussions began.

"The old name doesn't say what we do, and people never figured out who we were," Mr. Thomas said at a ceremony held near the dock where its two boats, Scout and Discovery, were moored. "There's no question about our loyalty to Pittsburgh, or our continued use of this facility, but we are traveling outside of the city now."

He said expansion plans will take the hands-on shipboard river education programs to Ohio and West Virginia next year.

Mr. Thomas also announced that RiverQuest's new flagship vessel, one of the first environmentally friendly passenger vessels in the world, is named Explorer.

The 90-foot-long, $3.2 million boat was scheduled to arrive in Pittsburgh around Oct. 1 after a 16-day cruise from Florida up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, but now won't get here until Nov. 1, at the earliest.

Mark Lynch, a RiverQuest spokesman, said the boat is being tested by its builder and then must undergo a series of sea trials by the U.S. Coast Guard.

RiverQuest had been expecting the boat to arrive in Pittsburgh Nov. 1, but Mr. Lynch said that time frame is now uncertain.

Explorer has a state-of-the-art hybrid propulsion system that will use a biodiesel fuel and other environmental technologies. Mr. Thomas said the new boat's name embodies the organization's mission.

"It's meant to capture the excitement of what we do through our Sustainability Education Program and reflects the leading-edge nature of our mission," he said. "No one else does quite what we do. No one has a vessel quite like Explorer, and no one will have the extraordinary on-board technology that we have to support exploration and learning."

Explorer, its two levels already boldly trimmed in blue and green and branded with RiverQuest's new boat and compass logo, took 14 months to build in a Florida shipyard.

The hull of the 150-passenger boat is made from 100 percent recycled steel, its cabinetry is wheatboard, its windows are energy-efficient custom architectural glass and its hybrid diesel-electric propulsion system is designed for the future addition of solar, wind or fuel cells.

As presently configured, the boat's engine will be able to run for an hour off of a large bank of on-board batteries that can be recharged at the dock or while underway using a low emissions biodiesel mixture that is up to 20 percent animal or vegetable biofuel produced at Steel City Biofuels on the North Side.

Mr. Thomas also said significant improvements will be made to its landing dock and approach with the addition of a two-tier covered deck area that will hold 150 people, and a better, handicapped-accessible, pathway from the Carnegie Science Center parking lot to the deck. Part of the improvements are aimed at removing a sometimes dangerous and congested blind curve from the Riverfront bike path.

Since launching its programming 11 years ago, the organization's boats and environmental programs on the river have been used by more than 55,000 middle and high school students from 227 schools and 65 school districts in 11 western Pennsylvania counties.

"We are all about experiential learning," Mr. Thomas said. "The boat will be a showcase for the newest sustainability technologies, and students and our other guests will have the opportunity to learn by actually seeing and doing."