| Type : |
Steel screw steamer |
| Launched : |
1905 |
| Builder : |
Mort's Dock Woolwich, NSW |
| Gross weight : |
442 tons |
| Dimensions : |
58.00 x 9.00 x 3.25 (metres) |
| Passenger capacity : |
1332 |
| Speed : |
13 knots |
Launched in 1905, Binngarra was to be the first of ultimately six similar ferries that were to dominate the Manly ferry trade for eighty years.
These six vessels would all be built by Mort’s Dockyard and Engineering Company – five at Woolwich and the last at Balmain. The builders had produced other ferries for the Manly trade; these six were to be the penultimate design for an Australian built Sydney ferry. These were among the largest ships being built in Australia at the time and Mort’s constructed them as much for the prestige as for profit.
Binngarra had all the hallmarks of a classic Manly ferry – double ended, sharp bow and sterns, wrap around sponsons and a tall white funnel. She was a direct descendant of the Kuring-gai built in 1901 and represented a refinement of that ferry. Mort’s based their new ferry on the Kuring-gai which had been designed by the renowned Australian ship architect Walter Reeks. Unlike her predecessors, she would be the first double ended manly ferry built with her wheelhouses at the extreme ends of the bridge deck rather than adjacent to the funnel.
Binngarra would ultimately give 25 years of dedicated service on the harbour.
The early 1900’s saw a rapid growth in the Manly trade. In the last years of the preceding century, there had been a shakeout in the Manly ferry companies and ultimately one would emerge as the victor – the Port Jackson and Manly Steamship Company.
The company had a collection of vessels of various types and ages. These were Fairlight, Fearless, Brighton, Brightside, Kuring-gai, Manly and Narrabeen. Except for Manly and Kuring-gai, the other vessels were aging paddle wheelers or cargo vessels and could not cope with the large crowds that the company was catering for.
The company placed an order with Mort’s Dockyard and Engineering Company at Woolwich in early 1904 for a new faster and larger ferry – the first of five vessels to be built at Woolwich of the Binngarra type. The last, Baragoola, would be built at Balmain. The materials were landed from England and construction was begun, a task that would take nearly two years.
Launched on the 18th of July 1905, Binngarra was 58 metres long with a draught of 3.25 metres and was the smallest of the six sisters. She weighed in at 442 tons and could carry 1380 passengers in fair weather at a speed of 14 knots – a speed rarely achieved; she usually operated at 13 knots. Prior to launching, Mort’s had offered to pay the Manly company five hundred pounds if she performed on her trial at less than 14 knots.
She had two decks for passengers, with an awning over the upper one. On the main deck at one end was fitted the ladies' saloon, boudoir, and lavatories. The intermediate space was enclosed and provided with seating accommodation.
Sliding doors were fitted so that in bad weather when closed it formed one large saloon. Round the outside of the cabins ample seating accommodation was also provided. The vessel was navigated from two bridges, each fitted with independent steam steering gear.
After running her trials on the 27th of October 1905, the Manly company wasted no time in getting her into service. Her first revenue trip was on Sunday the 29th at 1pm when she left Circular Quay for Manly. This started a tradition in that nearly all of the following eight vessels built for the Manly company went into service at the start of the peak trading period.
The machinery consisted of a set of triple expansion engines, having cylinders 17.5 inches, 27.5 inches, and 45 inches respectively in diameter, with a stroke of 27 inches, and steam reversing gear was provided. Steam was generated by two Navy type boilers each 10 foot 8 inches in diameter and 18 foot 6 inches long, with corrugated furnaces of 4 foot 4.5 inches in diameter, tested for a working pressure of 160lb to the square inch. A donkey boiler was also fitted. Among the auxiliary machines that were provided were an independent centrifugal circulating pump, automatic feed pumps, feed heater and filter.
The electric lighting, consisting of a direct coupled Scott and Mountain engine and dynamo, and about 100 lights, was installed by Messrs. Warburton, Franki, and Co. The wiring was run on a distribution board system, the navigation board being fitted with solenoids and arranged so that on a masthead or sidelight failing a signal was immediately given in the wheel house. An electric telegraph designed by the same firm and fitted between the wheel house and engine room.
The telegraph was described as a “reliable and high class piece of work” – something that would prove very wrong in her first week in service.
Only four days into service and Binngarra disgraced herself for the first time in her career – at 2pm on November the first, she failed to stop while berthing at Circular Quay and slammed into the stone retaining wall. It took over an hour to free her with Brightside, Leverett and Hero performing the task. Very little damage was done to the steamer comprising of a bent stem, the rudder displaced and two plates needing to be replaced. The accident was caused by a failure of “reliable” telegraph – the hand on the dial had worked loose and consequently the order from the bridge to the engine room never got through.
Ironically, four days later Kuring-gai managed the same feat and wedged herself into the hole left by Binngarra.
Binngarra was back in service on the 11th at 7.15pm running an excursion with a band on board after a day working her normal route.
This was normal for the company vessels – on the 20th of December both Binngarra and Brighton ran evening concert excursions and the newspapers of the day showed this as a regular weekly occurrence. The Manly company utilised their ferries for many tasks – not just as regular passenger steamers.
Still only a little more than a month old, Binngarra claimed her first and only life – a gentleman by the name of Henry Triggs had run to catch the ferry as it left Manly on the 6th December and appeared while on the boat to be quite ill. After disembarking at Circular Quay he collapsed and died of an apparent heart attack.
She managed to remain a sedate steamer for only a month – on the 18th of January 1906, Frederick Johnson, a watchmaker, was arrested after firing a gun on board. He was discovered to have twenty two cartridges in his possession at the time.
Apparently though the company was generally happy with her performance, later in the same year an order was placed for a second ferry of the same type; Burra Bra.
The rest of 1906 was a period of quiet working for the ferry and shenearly made it through 1907 without mishap. On the 2nd of December, an elderly gentleman by the name of Andrew Daley fell overboard shortly after leaving Manly. He was pulled unconscious from the water and the ferry returned to Manly after which he was taken to the local hospital.
1908 was to be an exciting year in Sydney – in August the great White Fleet arrived as part of its world tour. Binngarra was designated as the flagship for the vast fleet of spectator vessels and the limited tickets to the event sold out quickly.
1909 was a quiet year – the only event that interrupted her regular trips and excursions was in May when she went to the aid of the inner harbour ferry Kailoa which had grounded on rocks at Chowder Bay. She managed to get a tow line on the stricken ferry, but unfortunately this snapped and she was unable to assist further. Kailoa was eventually rescued the next day by Bronzewing and Captain Cook and suffered no damage.
1910 saw the arrival of her newest sister, Bellubera, a ferry that would ultimately be somewhat infamous. This gave the company three similar vessels and a huge increase in passenger capacity. The following year would see an order placed for two sisters, Barrenjoey and Balgowlah. Barrenjoey (later North Head) would go on to give service for 74 years – a record that has never been equaled.
But 1911 would be an exciting year for Binngarra – she would be involved in two serious incidents.
The first of these occurred on Saturday the 1st of July when, in thick fog near Fort Denison, Binngarra collided with the collier Pareora. Both vessels suffered damage, but the steel of the collier came off worse than the Manly boat’s steel. That day was a bad one on the harbour, two SFL ferries collided, the new Lady Rawson collided with a small steamer in Darling Harbour, a lighter grounded on rocks and a liner nearly grounded on Goat Island. The fog was regarded at the time as the worst yet seen on Sydney Harbour.
Barely three weeks later on the 23rd of July, a storm hit Sydney. Unusually, the Manly company cancelled several trips; something that they rarely ever did. Binngarra attempted to berth at 6.15pm at Manly but the swell was so strong that she was picked up and went aground on the sand between the main wharf and the cargo wharf. Her captain managed to free her with a degree of difficulty and she eventually disembarked her passengers onto the cargo wharf. Bellubera made the return run at 6.45pm and was described as being tossed around like a cork. Not surprisingly, very few passengers travelled that night.
Exactly one year to the day after her episode in the fog, Binngarra managed to get lost in another thick fog bank. She was due to arrive at Circular Quay at 10.45pm, but spent nearly half an hour wandering around trying to find her way. Passengers stated that they could not see from one end of the boat to the next. The fog managed to delay several ferries in Circular quay that could not leave due to the threat of collision.
Binngarra then had a quiet working life for the next fourteen years, recording no accidents or incidents. This was to change on the night of August 11th, 1926 when she had her most serious accident. Early in the evening, Binngarra rammed the wooden ferry Kanimbla which was carrying 250 passengers at the time. A huge gaping hole was torn in the side of the smaller ferry and she made a mad dash for Kirribilli wharf. Binngarra had cut through the sponson and hull of the smaller ferry as far in as the passenger saloon. For a short while they remained wedged together and the damage was shown to be severe after the steel ferry backed away. Witnesses expressed surprise that Kanimbla didn’t sink.
On the 31st of January, 1927, Binngarra collided with the coastal passenger steamer Lady Isobel off Bradleys Head, damage was minimal and there were no injuries. Although the master of the Binngarra was ultimately at fault because the ferry was travelling at an excessive speed, he was not punished as he had an exemplary record.
For the next year she remained out of trouble. On the 29th of February 1928, Binngarra suffered steering problems during peak hour at Circular Quay. Although the area was very busy, fortunately she only managed to scrape one other ferry (the Kurraba) and no damage was caused to either vessel.
But time was against the now elderly ferry. The arrival of Baragoola, Curl Curl and Dee Why had given the company three new, large and (in the case of the latter two) fast steamers. The writing was on the wall.
In 1930, after 25 years of service, 98,279 trips to and from Manly carrying more than 30 million passengers, she was withdrawn. During this time it was calculated that she had run 629,214 miles (over a million kilometers) in revenue service.
Laid up for three years, she was sold in 1933, towed to Balmain and hulked. Her hull was then moved to Port Stephens for use as a timber hulk. But her story was not quite over yet.
During World War II, the old ferry was requisitioned by the US Navy and towed to New Guinea to be used as a store ship. She was towed around from port to port, one skipper of an RAN ship stating that it was sometimes easy to forget she was there – she cut through the water so smoothly.
However, she was not abandoned in New Guinea at the end of the war, somehow or another she succeeded in being towed back home. But the end was now near.
On the 11th of December 1946, her rusted hull filled with chemical warfare agents and ammunition made redundant by the end of the war, she was towed to the disposal area of Sydney Heads and scuttled.
Scuttling charges were detonated at 5.57pm and she sank four minutes later.
The disposal position was 122º Macquarie Light, 35.5 miles at 1100 fathoms (2012 metres) [34º 10.2' S, 151º 53.1' E].
Binngarra was the last vessel sunk in this location that was carrying chemical weapons.