Topic: Timeline of Manly ferries

[Lance]

I did a little timeline of Manly ferries in the 20th century.

One thing that sticks out is how Barrenjoey, Baragoola & Bellubera dominated last century. Nothing ele came near them in longevity.

[Nicko]

Hi All

I think this tells because of conversion to diesel of all three B boats
South Steyne did not last long because she was steam

Regards Nick

[Lance]

Barrenjoey lasted 38 years in steam - still 2 years longer than the Steyne

It kinda irritates me when I hear people say that the Steyne was "the greatest of them all" - that title (IMHO) belongs to North Head.

[Nicko]

Yes I have to agree Lance
Barrenjoey had the  longevity albiet in different form

[Alex]

Barrenjoey lasted 38 years in steam - still 2 years longer than the Steyne

It kinda irritates me when I hear people say that the Steyne was "the greatest of them all" - that title (IMHO) belongs to North Head.

Define "greatest"

"Greatest" in the sense of "biggest", "newest", "grandest?-yep, she goes close
"greatest" measured by longevity-IMHO that title is shared between Baragoola and Barrenjoey/North Head-one must discount points from NH/Barrenjoey for the rebuild...]

[Lance]

If you discount Barrenjoey/North Head then the longevity title falls to Bellubera.

[Alex]

Are we talking time extant or time in service?

[Nicko]

Time in service I think

[Lance]

In which case Bellubera wa in service for 63 years (Baragoola for 61).

[Lance]

Looking at revising this to bring it up to date (and add a few more older boats).

Slightly OT - Freshwater hits 29 this year - she's only 1 year younger than Binngarra was when she was removed.

Also OT - Baragoola (at 89 this year) is certainly the record holder as far as length of time on the harbour for any Manly boat (but exceeded by Lady Scott (97 years) and Kanangra (99 years).

[Mark]

I think the South Steyne was built as the advertising material for the company. For the ocean cruises to get the company's name in the press. She could carry a lot of passengers but she had no running mate. Being so big, fat and heavy, she must have been the biggest fuel user in the fleet.
Bellubera was chosen to be dieselised as she was at the end of her normal life expectancy and she was a trial boat for diesels. She had greater capacity than the Burra Bra (which was virtually redundant by then) and was most likely seen as a better investment than the Burra Bra.
Balgowlah was removed from service at the end of her economic life and had she been dieselised and rebuilt would have lasted another 30-40 years.
The "B"s were good boats but 3 of them had some extra help along the way.

[Steyne, S.]

Dee Why used to be on the company's advertising posters (in trams etc) before South Steyne came along. The South Steyne ocean cruises didn't start until 1953 when she was 15 years old. The ocean cruises were not initially a PJ&MSCo idea but entirely that of a private charter operator who proved incompetent and unreliable so in less than a year PJ&MSCo started running them. South Steyne was ample, not fat.

[Mark]

I get your point Steyne. But the big ferry needed 3250 ihp to reach 17 knots, The dieselised Bs could do 16 knots on 2000 bhp and as steamers, 15 knots on 1400 ihp. My point is South Steyne had no running mate and her additional capacity was wasted at peak hour as there was no equalivant running in the opposite direction. Its a lot of horsepower and fuel for 270 additional passengers. The Curl Curl and Dee Why had the same engine power as the Steyne for no gain in passengers over the "B"s. They must have been expensive to run compared to the diesel boats in the late 50s.

[Lance]

Bellubera was chosen to be dieselised as she was at the end of her normal life expectancy and she was a trial boat for diesels. She had greater capacity than the Burra Bra (which was virtually redundant by then) and was most likely seen as a better investment than the Burra Bra.

Not sure she was regarded as at the end of her life when she was done. Consider she lasted nearly another 40 years after the conversion and needed little hull work even after her catastrophic fire.

Balgowlah was removed from service at the end of her economic life and had she been dieselised and rebuilt would have lasted another 30-40 years.

Balgowlah was due to be refitted to diesel in much the same way that Barrenjoey was - the cost of that particular conversion meant that Balgowlah's could not be done (it nearly drove the company broke).

The "B"s were good boats but 3 of them had some extra help along the way.

That "extra help" started right back at the time they were built, especially the last three - they were built to a very high standard by Mort's (and were the biggest built as well) to show off the prestige of the company. Mort's had a good reason to over-engineer them so they could show how big and how well they could build.

Baragoola is a case in point, Mort's made nothing on her build. As for quality of build - well 89 years later she's still here. In some respects the same quality of build & materials went into Kanagra as well, SFL had wanted a wooden boat.

[Lance]

I get your point Steyne. But the big ferry needed 3250 ihp to reach 17 knots, The dieselised Bs could do 16 knots on 2000 bhp and as steamers, 15 knots on 1400 ihp. My point is South Steyne had no running mate and her additional capacity was wasted at peak hour as there was no equalivant running in the opposite direction. Its a lot of horsepower and fuel for 270 additional passengers. The Curl Curl and Dee Why had the same engine power as the Steyne for no gain in passengers over the "B"s. They must have been expensive to run compared to the diesel boats in the late 50s.

The twins were expensive to run but in the beginning cost wasn't relevant. The manly co. used the simple method of increasing power rather than demanding engineering gains to increase the speed of their boats. The twins in particular came at a time when talk of the northern beaches railway again reared it's head - the co. needed very fast boats in case that competition arrived.

For most of their lives these two boats were the workhorses of the fleet, South Steyne not so much so - there's a published timetable (http://www.ferriesofsydney.com/index.php?topic=1491.msg6855#msg6855) from 1952 that shows how the boats were utilised:

Bellubera - 14
Curl Curl - 16
Dee Why - 22
North Head - 20
South Steyne - 12

South Steyne was the least used. Balgowlah was out of service by then and it looks like Baragoola was probably a spare boat (at that time she would have been the slowest of the remaining steamers). North Head was relatively new to the service and the bulk of the work was done by her and Dee Why.

This was a time when costs began to tell against the company and passenger numbers had started declining, so I would assume the expensive-to-run high capacity South Steyne was already being looked at as a bit of a burden. I suspect what saved that boat was the opportunity taken a year or two later to utilise her for something other than passenger services and recoup some of her operating costs.

The remaining boats all carried roughly the same (lesser) number of passengers and operated at roughly the same speed.

Certainly the return of Baragoola in '61 as cheaper to operate MV would have placed the three remaining steamers operating costs under the spotlight. I suspect the imminent return of Baragoola was the "kiss of death" for Curl Curl.

Dee Why followed no long thereafter and in her last few years was the spare boat of the fleet. They were never considered for conversion as their steel had apparently not aged well.

This left the three diesel boats carrying the majority of the service. I would conjecture that had another one (possibly two) diesel boats been available then South Steyne would also have exited stage left at this time and certainly the company records indicate that South Steyne was considered for replacement in the late 60's with the remaining three boats to be retired a few years afterwards.  History shows otherwise and the worn out Bellubera was lost first (a crying shame that, she should still be with us today) and North Head and Goola became the backbone of the fleet until the arrival of the Freshwater class.

North Head of course (despite Tom Mead's appellation of "the greatest of them all" to the South Steyne) proved to be the truly greatest and longest lived Manly ferry - I doubt we'll ever see anything match her 74 years in the saddle. Though I do wonder why Goola became such a favourite and received such a send off and North Head just went quietly into retirement.