COVINGTON, Ky. — He films boats moving down the Ohio River and rates them on a five-star scale. Then he posts the videos on Instagram. That's it. And he's racked up more than 20,000 followers in less than a month.
Known only as Boat Rater, this Covington man creates viral sensations from a riverfront deck.
His first post was a photo on April 26. He said the idea to launch an account sparked after a particularly noisy boat chugged down the river.
"I was with my girlfriend and she was like, 'Hey, that boat's too loud.' We wish we could deduct points for that boat, so we decided it would be fun to do a boat rater app," he said.
It didn't take long for him to find his flow: reels were the key. Most nab a minimum of 10,000 views. One, which highlights an Army Corps of Engineers barge as a "float-tropolis," garnered almost half a million views.
"You know, I'm just out here watching these boats go by on the river. I wasn't expecting anybody to get excited about it," he said. "It's uh, Boat Rater is getting kinda famous. I might be more famous than 'Travis Trelce and Traylor Sniff' these days."
Boat Rater uses a maritime tracker that he downloaded on his phone for free. It shows him where boats are on the river in real time so he knows what will float by for a video op.
His videos aren't just resonating locally. They're also ending up on foreign Instagram feeds.
"Some dude hit me up from France," he said. "Some dude hit me up from New Zealand. I didn't even know they had boats in France."
Boat Rater doesn't discriminate. He shells out stars for boats of all kinds. While most videos are of tug boats and barges, he'll feature some private boats and even a lonely blue barrel or two.
The former was granted a measly 1 star. So was the Atlantis tug boat, one of Boat Rater's most highly criticized vessels.
"That Atlantis come around — lazy boat. Don't ever do nothing ever, just come up the river empty," he said.
Boat Rater does have some high-rating boats, however. His favorite is a come-from-behind winner that started at one star and worked its way up to five: The Dwain Harper.
"Everybody knows I got a soft spot for slippery ole Dee-Wayne," he said.
But what makes Dee-Wayne so slippery?
"I mean he's always got something up his sleeve. He's over there in that slap water just slippin' and slidin'," Boat Rater said. "He turns off his spinners sometimes. He's just a sneaky dude."
And just who is the man behind the videos?
"Boat Rater's incognito. Nobody knows I'm the Boat Rater. Boat Rater stays off the radar," he said.
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