Captain Jack: I'll Take the Searoad
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FEATURE Peninsula Searoad managing director John MacKeddie Captain Jack: I’ll take the Searoad WORDS: TONY MURRELL / IMAGES: KEITH PLATT A couple with their car can cross Port Phillip near the Heads for $63 aboard one of Peninsula Searoad Transport’s ferries, ogling the clifftop mansions of Melbourne’s rich and famous as the vessels slide along the Sorrento and Portsea shoreline before turning and heading for the sentinel Norfolk pines of Queenscliff. The 40-minute ride is pleasant on Although his grandfather died just those lat sea, sunny days and the 60 m. before Mackeddie was born, he knows white ferries, MV Queenscliff and MV a great deal of the man who owned Sorrento, are often accompanied, at least Manyung in Mt eliza and drove to the part of the way, by dolphins playing in The Alfred daily in his Rolls Royce. the bow waves. “he taught himself German while The open upper decks are a magnet for holding the book on the steering wheel as passengers keen to catch the rays on warm he drove up the highway,” Mackeddie said. days. It’s like you’re really on holiday, It’s a feat the grandson greatly admires. basking and looking around at the views. Mackeddie, 65, signed on as a skipper And that’s exactly how Searoad when the ferry boat company was Managing Director John Mackeddie launching 23 years ago – yes, that far wants you to feel. back. he was among those who piloted I should say at the outset that I call him the red and white Peninsula Princess John because that’s how he introduced back and forth eight times a day, carrying himself 30 years ago when I was reporting up to 28 cars each crossing. The record the hovercraft ferry service he was about payload, Mackeddie recalls, was 33 cars. to launch, linking the Mornington It was a basic service: most passengers Peninsula to the city. just sat in their vehicles on the open deck Over the years I noticed when his name and waited, not like today with lounges, came up that he had transformed from television, comfortable chairs and cafes. John to Jack. Mackeddie, however, still speaks with “Yes, it says Jack on my business card,” affection about the Princess which made he tells me in an interview at the ferry about 22,000 crossings, including a ticket ofice in Sorrento. ive-year period without missing a trip. Then, after a few moments: “I prefer Today, Peninsula Searoad nears John – I’m named after my grandfather icon status among southern peninsula John Fullarton Mackeddie (a well known businesses as the ubiquitous Persil-white Melbourne doctor) – I think I’ll go back leviathans patrol the head of the bay, to that.” And then he smiles. docking hourly on both sides. June 2010 | BusinessTimes | 31 feature Each can carry 80 cars and about 750 I don’t know how long that can last.” vehicles, would do the job initially,” he passengers. Meanwhile, the company’s workforce is said. In 2001, Mackeddie and his partner stable at 70, including casuals. The siting of terminal locations would Sydney merchant banker John Barnes Mackeddie remains optimistic about require careful consideration, he added. built the latest addition to Searoads’ leet, Searoad’s future. “We are always looking On another issue, Mackeddie is the 750 tonne MV Sorrento, at Southern at improvements to make the trip more supporting a Bellarine community push Marine Shiplift, a Launceston company enjoyable and comfortable for our which started last year to have the ferry they bought in the late 90s in partnership passengers,” he said. Plans to upgrade route classiied a highway in order to with marine engine company Cummins. facilities on both sides of the bay include attract government funding, like the Spirit SMS can lift and service vessels up to air bridges so foot passengers can board of Tasmania route from Melbourne to 2500 tonnes. directly onto the upper decks from second Devonport. Mackeddie then commissioned a 35m level additions to terminal buildings. “I’m happy to talk to any people luxury cruiser Platinum which has been in interested in hearing how the ferry service charter around the Australian east coast could be improved through cheaper since taking three and a half years to build ON THE HOVERCRAFT fares and support from all levels of at the SMS yard. EXPERIENCE: government,” he said. Mackeddie describes Searoad’s growth ‘I LEARNED ABOUT A wanderer in his youth, Mackeddie over the years as “steady and healthy”. 300,000 ONE-DOLLAR was back and forth to Western Australia However, at the moment the business is LESSONS’ doing numerous jobs and owning several not kicking on as it should and the boss businesses before tying up with Peninsula cites several reasons. Searoad. “Some authorities don’t understand the For 20 years Mackeddie has harboured From crop-sowing in WA –35,000 importance of the ferry service to tourism the desire to relocate the Mornington acres in four months – to welding, panel and the economy of the Mornington and Peninsula terminal to Quarantine Station beating and heavy equipment driving, the Bellarine peninsulas, so there is a lack of in what is now Point Nepean National Mornington Peninsula bred handyman consideration and support. Park. had his irst taste of the marine industry “The feeder roads to the ferry are under It would cut the crossing time by about working a dredge in Esperance harbour in par – the network on the Mornington half, reduce costs and, more importantly, the mid 60s. Peninsula side has been throttled. You makes fares cheaper. Back in Victoria, Mackeddie was a can’t cater for through trafic by putting He describes it as a win all round – and dredgemaster and launch driver on jobs a bicycle lane along Point Nepean Rd, the park’s upkeep would be susidised at Hastings and Webb Dock, Melbourne, cutting out what used to be a third trafic by the service. This is a low-key but as well as helping to build new harbours lane. perpetual campaign by a man who’s in Weipa, Queensland; Outer Harbour, “Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for survival in the maritime industry indicates Adelaide; and Bunbury,WA, where the cycling as a sport, pastime and healthy an ability to stay focused. new harbour was blasted from rock. He family pursuit.” Also, Peninsula Searoad is looking at bought and sold a tug over there before Mackeddie added that cheap domestic the proposed Stony Point to Cowes car returning again to Victoria to run supply air fares had made a huge difference and ferry, which Mackeddie believes is likely vessels to the Bass Strait oil rigs. a lot of coastal tourism operations were because the state government “is keen”. “After that a lot of people in the suffering. “It’s not going to be a pot of gold, but I maritime industry were out of work so “For the cost of a tank of petrol, you would envisage something like Peninsula I restored a vintage car or two, bought can get two air tickets to the Gold Coast. Princess, with a capacity of about 28 and sold a bobcat and backhoe business 32 | BusinessTimes | June 2010 ABOVE: Like a giant Nintendo these stickshifts Experts still doubt the feasibility of hovercraft ferry service, even today. control the thrusters that make berthing easier. a bay commuter operation. A 2008 As he said, he learned years ago that to ABOVE LEFT: John Mackeddie’s pride and joy, MV Department of Transport commissioned go fast on water costs a fortune – “huge Sorrento approaches Sorrento terminal. study which looked particularly at a horsepower means huge fuel consumption ABOVE RIGHT: Searoads’ Managing Director John Geelong-Portarlington-Werribee link-up and very big costs”. Mackeddie (background) with fellow Master 4s and good mates Keith ‘Bear’ Rawlinson (left) and Percy with the city, found that “commercial Also, he said, hovercraft have never Jones on the bridge of MV Sorrento. viability … is questionable and would really progressed like other forms of require signiicant subsidy from transport, jet engines, for instance. government to operate.” “They haven’t solved the problem of from a bloke who had a contract for Maunsell’s Review and Analysis of extremely high maintenance required on sewer works in Mt Eliza, then bought and Historical and Proposed Commuter Ferry the skirts and if you run gas turbine engines sold a share of the Continental Hotel in Services on Port Phillip also looked back close to sea level, salt spray rewards you Sorrento before moving to Port Douglas at the Mackeddie experiment and noted with more big maintenance bills.” for a while.” “a poor commuter turnout” and “the The hovercraft experience was still an It hasn’t always been plain sailing for the service could not achieve reliability”. It open sore when Mackeddie started at boy raised by his mother and sent away to lasted about six months. Searoad, where he rose from a skipper to boarding school at the age of four and a One thing about entrepreneurs, though, general manager in a few months. half. Flash back to the early 1980s when is that they keep coming. Just last October “One of the skippers put Peninsula Mackeddie loated a hovercraft commuter Carrum Downs businessman George Princess on the rocks at Queenscliff – we service linking Rosebud, Mornington, Hart announced he wanted to operate faced a huge repair bill, a stockmarket and Frankston with Station Pier. It didn’t a bay commuter service using a leet of crash and the company had little money.” work and Mackeddie tried to salvage 12 custom-built ferries linking Rosebud, It was Mackeddie’s black swan event.