Lady Wakehurst











Lady Wakehurst
Type :
 Steel motor vessel
Launched  :
1974
Builder :
 New South Wales State Dockyard
Newcastle, NSW
Gross :
 366 tons
Dimensions :
 43.90x 10.34  (metres)
Passenger capacity :
 820 (718 in Manly service)
Speed :
 13 knots

Lady Wakehurst is a sister to Lady Northcott and is the most travelled of the modern Ladies.

Along with her sister ship she became vital on the degraded Manly run after the withdrawal of the South Steyne left only North Head and Baragoola to fill that service. With Baragoola out for an extended refit the two new, smaller inner harbour ferries were quickly pressed into service to fill in. (It should be noted that Lady Wakehurst had an ignomious start to her Manly careeer, breaking down on her first trip). However, disaster struck both the Manly run and Hobart in 1975 when the Lake Illawarra struck the Derwent Bridge. Lady Wakehurst along with several other Sydney ferries (including the veteran Kosciusko) were towed to Hobart to assist in the loads of people needing an alternate way to cross the river. This left a gap in the Manly service and was one of the final reasons for the construction of the Freshwater class of ferries.

After 18 months in Hobart she was towed back to Sydney, she had suffered bow damage whilst there, interestingly it wasn't until 1990 that the damage was repaired. Her arrival back home was lucky as her sister  (Lady Northcott) was out of action with hull damage. Finally in 1982 with the new Manly boats in service she finally began to ply the inner harbour routes for which she had been designed.

On the night of November 25th, 1974 she broke down off Dobroyd Head with 700 passengers aboard. North Head assisted and took her passengers off. She was withdrawn from service for a week after hitting the wharf at Circular Quay on December 13th, 1974. She had two accidents with yachts - the first occurredon February 8th, 1981 which resulted in the sinking of the smaller yacht. The second happend on April 11th of the following year when she struck and sank another yacht resulting in the fatality of one person.

After being withdrawn from service in 1996 with shaft problems she was sold to Auckland, New Zealand (Merv Young) - she made the trip under her own power - and back. Interestingly the shaft that had caused her to be withdrawn has never been replaced.

She was for a time owned by the same company that owns the Harbour Queen (ex Lady Scott) and operated for them as a cruise/function vessel on the harbour.

As a footnote, in February 2006 three of the Freshwater ferries were out of service, Lady Northcott was returned to the Manly run and Sydney Ferries chartered Lady Wakehurst to operate as her running mate. Ironically Lady Wakehurst had been originally withdrawn from the fleet because she was supposedly too expensive to refit and there was no need to maintain her as a spare Manly boat.

Lady Wakehurst now operates as a high capacity cruise vessel on Sydney Harbour.

Lady Wakehurst is named after Lady Margaret Loder Wakehurst (1899 - 1994), wife of Baron John De Vere Loder Wakehurst, Governor of New South Wales .
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