The Spamtown Belle will be open for business again next spring, but this time in a different location.

With city council’s blessing and the parks and recreation board’s support, the boat will be taking passengers on rides across East Side Lake starting sometime in late May and running through September.

This past spring, the belle called Mill Pond home, but volunteer pilot Richard Nordin said East Side is bigger and is less plagued by algae.

Nordin is one of four volunteer pilots that keep the Spamtown Belle up and running.

They essentially pay for all the costs, which include insurance, licensing and maintenance fees. The parks and recreation department puts the boat in the water and fills it with gas weekly, but the four pilots pay for the fuel.

Nordin said last season was a success, with 932 riders getting on board, 34 percent of which were from out of town. And some of these folks were from way out of town — the boat had passengers from Romania, Zimbabwe and China, according to records kept by the pilots.

The Spamtown Belle was donated to the city in 1999. It used to receive city funding to operate, but that was yanked before this last season, forcing the pilots to seek out donations to stay afloat.