Baragoola Week Ending 8th January 2012

In attendance this week: Nick, Glen, Lance, Gary, Geoff E, Geoff L, Ernie, Stuart and Ben Visitors: Two

Only $10 raised last week – our lowest for a few months but then again it’s the holiday season straight after Christmas so there isn’t a great deal of cash around. One outgoing which was $6 for the phone bill.

This time last year we ran a series of very successful charity auctions on eBay raising several thousand dollars for the boat thanks to the generosity of our members. So, a year later we are going to do it again. Can you help with our fundraising efforts by donating items that you no longer need? We will take any item – old furniture, knick knacks, electrical and consumer goods, old computer equipment (especially form the early to mid eighties), books, tapes & DVD’s – in fact anything you’ve got laying around causing clutter and can spare us. Contact [email protected] – we’ve already received several items and we’ll start auctioning these off shortly – many thanks to everyone who’s donated items so far!

We’re currently running our old stock of souvenir mugs out and replacing them with a new line, details of the run-out can be found online at http://www.baragoola.com.au/forum/index.php?topic=1070.0 and also our first new item for this year (limited edition 90th anniversary mug – only ten available so order yours early) at http://www.baragoola.com.au/forum/index.php?topic=1079.0

First off a little history – when people think of the Manly , they perhaps think of the four Freshwater , or older people may think of Baragoola, North Head, South Steyne or the two Scottish steamers. But in fact there have been dozens of Manly ferries; some purpose built and full time ones, some part-time excursion boats that doubled as tugs and of course the fleet that was operated to carry cargo to Manly and sometimes did duty carrying passengers. One of the earlier ones was a sizeable vessel called Goolwa, she was an iron paddle wheeler built at Jarrow-on-Tyne in England and originally designed to operate as a tug in Adelaide. Like many of Australia’s early steamships she came out under her own power. She was sold to Sydney in 1868 and for the next five years ran with and Breadalbane on the Manly service as well as fulfilling her tug duties. For the next twenty years after, she remained on the harbour (purely as a tug) before moving to Newcastle. She continued to operate as a tug on the Hunter until finally sinking in 1919 – 54 years of service life in all. Goolwa’s remains can be seen near to the remains of another Manly ferry, Kuring-gai (the true fore-runner of the Binngarra style ferries and all that came after her). On the 20th of this month, Goolwa marks 147 years since her launch.

There are of course remains of other Manly ferries still at large, is in Queensland (little remains), Binngarra, Burra Bra, Balgowlah and a plethora of others are scuttled off the coast of Sydney and Newcastle. And of course there are three of the classic ferries still afloat – North Head (ex Barrenjoey) is more or less beached at Cairns and gutted of all her fittings and changed internally, never to float again and in poor condition – she turns 99 this year; South Steyne, last new build for the Manly company bearing little resemblance to her original self and with much of her original material completely replaced as well as having her interiors modified beyond recognition and, of course, Baragoola.

So what is it that makes this one so historically important when there are two others still around? Baragoola is near original with most of her material dating from 1922 and the 1930s when the upper deck was closed in. The next major change was her re-engining in 1958-1961 when her outward appearance changed little – just a shorter funnel appeared. Her motive power is unique – she carries four seven cylinder English Electric diesel engines (Bellubera and North Head had a set as well) and only Goola’s remain largely intact with one operational and a second soon to join. The control equipment (intact and working) is also unique and the whole is a sole survivor of 1940s diesel electric technology that no longer exists. The intrinsic value of the technology can’t be underestimated; the company that now owns English Electric expressed amazement when I contacted them some time back that this lone example still existed.

She is also the last remaining large vessel built in Sydney by Mort’s Dockyard at Balmain (and only one other (small) Balmain boat exists) and is representative of the technology that was used to construct vessels of her kind in the early 20th century in Sydney. She is also one of the largest vessels constructed in Australia at the time. Rare, unique and a last link to a time when ship building in Sydney was common and the products being turned out were the equal of anything in the empire at the time. And finally, the very last classic Manly ferry that has any chance of being operational. For a huge number of reasons Baragoola must be returned to good order again as a lone reminder of Sydney’s once great maritime heritage and as the last Sydney built Manly ferry. To do this we need the continued support of the community that has so generously donated time, money and materials to Baragoola’s restoration.

But enough of the history lessons and on to the work completed this week!

We’re still in the holiday season but nice to see numbers up this week over the last one. Also great to welcome aboard our newest volunteer Ben – we gave him the easy job this weekend but once he’s settled in that will change! After getting the tour and induction and meeting the crew Ben cleaned all the downstairs windows – not a small job and just one of the multitudes regular maintenance jobs that always seem to need doing.

We also welcomed back Ernie this week after an extended break – it was no longer silent downstairs! He’s rather camera shy and tends to hide when one comes near but I managed to corner him to find out what he was doing – what I spotted was further work done to the aft bulkhead, the aft prop shaft painted, various labels removed off the control boards and cleaning out of the forward propulsion motor’s oil tank begun – unbelievable 

Aft prop shaft

This shaft is connected to the propulsion motors in the control room and has been turned on several occasions under ship power. It’s a sight to behold and if you haven’t visited us when the machinery has been in full swing then you are, unfortunately, poorer for it! Ernie, Peter, Chris and the rest of the engineering crew have turned in a remarkable job on Goola’s equipment and each milestone is always met with great excitement from the crew on board. The next thing to be returned to operation is English Electric #2 and Peter mentioned this is timed for March. Two operational engines – remember that in service she only needed three to run at her rated 16 knots (the fourth was held in readiness in case it was needed).

Forward propulsion oil tank being cleaned up

We have had some interesting weather down here this week; 35mm of rain in a ten minute period hammered an enormous amount of water onto the ferry and severely tested her drainage (roof and decks) but she came through admirably – more impressive was the wind, at one point a gust of 117km/h was recorded by our weather station – she barely even noticed it. But rainwater has always been our biggest enemy and with unsympathetic prior work her elegantly simple drainage system has been long compromised. Bit by this is being rectified with the re-opening or original stormwater drains on the roof and with new downpipes to be installed to carry water away from the decks.

Part of the preliminary work for a new pipe was done this weekend with Gary cutting away a decayed (rusted out) section of downpipe in readiness for a new section to be added and a diversion to be put in place to carry water directly outside the ferry. Follow up work to needle gun and clean back the bulwarks in the area was halted by, of course, rain..... Always the way naturally and we’ll come back to this area next weekend – assuming it doesn’t rain again of course!

Cutting out the old drain pipe

Geoff L continued his work on chipping and cleaning the floor plates from the below decks areas. There are a few more of these now completed and ready for their black paint; once painted they’ll be returned back to their proper locations.

Maintenance work seemed to be the order of the day with Nick, myself and Geoff E bringing up the electric bilge pump in the engine room for a service. Bloody filthy work but needed to ensure these pumps are in correct working order in case they are ever needed.

Retrieving the pump from between EE#1 and EE#2

An opportunity was also taken to clean away some more of the many years of debris that has washed down into the bilges. We have already completely cleared a couple of the holds and have decided that a concerted effort will shortly be made to complete the Generator Flat and the Engine Room – clean bilges and clean plates mean less areas where problems can occur – so we’ll be setting a date soon and we hope as many of our regulars can assist in this important task.

Briefly digressing, cleaning is something we all must do on board – unfortunately we don’t have a cleaner so if a mess is made (or seen) please clean it up – the galley was left in quite a state this weekend with cups, plates, cutlery and food wrappers left scattered.

The same applies to areas where you may be working, in particular on the decks which have recently received a lot of hard work to clean them up! However if someone would like to donate the money to employ a cleaner then the problem would be solved – can’t see that happening anytime soon so unfortunately cleaning becomes everyone’s responsibility!

Geoff cleaning debris away from the hull plates in the engine room

Last weekend Gary changed the way the mooring for the pontoon is done to prevent it banging against the ship and the heavy weather earlier this week proved the work nicely. This weekend he changed the mooring arrangement for the big work boat and hung some tyres as buffers – it’s now held well away from the hull and no longer bangs against it. He also took the opportunity to design a far simpler and easy to operate mooring arrangement for the work boat.

Mooring were certainly the order of the day – two of the main springers mooring Baragoola have for several years been roped to a bollard that is held on by only one proper bolt and one bent one (there should be six all up), Nick with Gary’s assistance removed these lines and secured them to a far better held bollard. No danger of her letting go of course as we have multiple redundant ropes holding her in place but far better to be safe than sorry. Of course that provided an excuse to descaled and rust proof the now unused bollard on Sunday. Most of the others are already done.

Cast iron bollards ready to be cleaned up

Nick sets to with the needle gun......

... and under coat of anti rust paint (these will be painted in high gloss black later)

On Saturday Geoff E had removed rust from one part of the band that holds in the wood for the sponson, this received its anti rust paint today.

Indeed Sunday sort a lot of anti rust paint go onto part of the bulwarks that had been previously chipped and treated.

Although the bulwark looks bent in at the end, this isn’t the case; it’s just the angle of the shot Nick began another section of bulwark today as well as part of one railing and this area has also been treated with anti rust paint.

Believe it or not, this is actually quite fun work and very satisfying too!

Yesterday also saw Stuart turn up for a while – for those who don’t know (of) him, he actually has a very special connection to Baragoola as his great grandmother (wife of the then managing director the and Manly Steamship Company), Mrs Hunter McPherson launched this ferry. He’s also had an interest in her, sisters North Head and Bellubera and the South Steyne for a very long time. And he came bearing gifts! A fairly long video of Goola in operation was one of the goodies but there was lots more – he’s kindly uploaded to our sister site (Ferries of Sydney) several shots of Baragoola in operation including some rare internal images (there are posted at the forum in two parts at the address http://www.ferriesofsydney.com/index.php?topic=311.msg10037#msg10037).

He also uploaded an absolutely enormous amount of photos of Bellubera’s last days; very sad to see her being broken up but absolutely wonderful that a record was made.

Bellubera’s images can be found at http://www.ferriesofsydney.com/index.php?topic=2457.0 under the aptly named title of “Breaking Up Can Be Hard To Do”  But he brought along one other gift – this was one of the upstairs wing seats from Bellubera – identical to what Baragoola used to have.

Bellubera’ seat – surprisingly comfortable!

Relocated to the front of the staircase (rear of picture) in front of two of Goola’s horsehair stuffed seats

A great gift and one that is very much appreciated. That’s it for this week –you can keep up with all the latest on our forums and you can see our old newsletters at http://www.baragoola.com.au

If you are on Facebook you can follow us at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Baragoola-Preservation- Association-Incorporated/122851477818947 - we have also launched a fundraiser through this and would appreciate if the link can be shared out to everyone, so far we’ve received several donations that can be tracked back to this. That post is at https://www.facebook.com/ajax/sharer/?s=99&appid=2309869772&p%5B0%5D=122851477818947&p %5B1%5D=302633779749988

We’re also on Twitter as #MVBaragoola – updates are posted fairly regularly. Our main website is now www.baragoola.com.au and if you have Google Talk installed you can chat to us if anyone is online and nearby the computer – add [email protected] as a friend. And, last but not least, we also have a flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/65669741@N08/

Please note that the on board phone number has changed to 0478 519 033 – when you need access to Baragoola please use this one in the first instance; only call one of the crew directly if it doesn’t answer. For general business you should call our message bank on 02 9294 3168. There will be people about most of this week so feel free to come down (after 8am) to lend a hand or have a look around. Next scheduled work days are Saturday and Sunday (21 and 22). We’ll send out the usual reminder mid week.

Nick Pellier, Andrew Gowanlock and Geoff Eastwood on Bellubera in 1980 – all three are involved with Baragoola today. Picture (c) Stuart McPherson – someone please tell us why Nick is dressed so neatly?!