After a long voyage from Boston and 18 months of renovation, the Savannah River's newest tour boat is almost ready.

"It's got new carpet and new skin," said Capt. Jim Bradshaw, who, with his wife, Cathy, will operate the 51-foot vessel, The Patriot.

The tri-hulled, enclosed boat will accommodate 85 passengers and will have permanent mooring behind the Augusta Marriott Hotel & Suites on 10th Street, he said.

The Coast Guard -- which by law must inspect and certify commercial passenger boats -- is scheduled to evaluate The Patriot on April 3.

Soon after, Capt. Bradshaw said, it will be available for tours of the Savannah River from downtown Augusta to the New Savannah Bluff Locks.

Capt. Bradshaw, a 1970 graduate of Cape Fear Maritime College in Wilmington, N.C., came to Augusta three years ago to pilot the Augusta Canal Authority's Petersburg tour boats. He and his wife live on Lake Murray, near Lexington, S.C.

"You have almost 500,000 people in a 20-mile radius of Augusta," he said. "To have that many people, and a resource like the Savannah River with no tour boats, it was a shame."

The Patriot, he said, will make regular daily tours of the river and also will be available for charters, weddings and events.

The boat was built in 1997 and has ferried tourists in the Boston area. Capt. Bradshaw trucked the boat to Augusta and has been renovating it for 18 months at the Riverfront Marina Warehouse.

On Tuesday, a crane hoisted the 16-foot-wide Patriot into the river for its inaugural tests.

"It's going to do fine," Capt. Bradshaw said.

Augusta had a tour boat in the late 1980s and early 1990s -- the Princess Augusta -- but its owners closed the business and leased the boat to a Jacksonville, Fla., firm in 1995.