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Sydney ferries

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I’ve been reading an article about seafaring and trade between Australia and Papua New Guinea that describes the distinctive boats of the Motu people, with crab-claw shaped sails, and their well-established trading set-up dating back at least two thousand years. But the boats I want to talk about are the Sydney ferries, that have been operating for about 150 years.

In 1861 the North Shore Ferry Company started running the first formal ferry services on the harbour, between Circular Quay and Milsons Point. By the early 1930s Sydney Ferries Limited was the world’s biggest ferry operator, carrying 40 million passengers per year. When the Harbour Bridge opened in 1932, patronage dropped to 14 million passengers per year and the number of ferries was reduced by half.[1] The ferries were recycled to a number of different uses, with Kuttabul being converted into HMAS Kuttabul to house seamen at Garden Island. On May 31 1942 three Japanese mini-submarines entered Sydney Harbour and released a torpedo – possibly aiming at the US warship USS Chicago – that hit the sea wall at Garden Island. The explosion sank HMAS Kuttabul instead. While the incident was kept as quiet as possible, eventually 19 Australian and two British men were declared dead from the action.

Sydney ferries still carry about 14 million passengers every year. In the twelve months April 2018–March 2019, over a million trips were made on Sydney Ferries each month. The highest month was January, with 1,620,000 trips made and the lowest month was August, with 1,103,000 trips.[2]

There are currently 29 wharves in the ferry system throughout Sydney, from Manly to Parramatta, but ferries were used far more widely in the past. In 1900 there were ten different ferry wharves for Balmain alone, from Elliott St on the north side of the peninsula, round to Reynolds St on the south side,[3] and in the 1940s there were eleven public wharves on the Hunters Hill peninsula.[4]

These days eight lines of Sydney Ferries have routes around the harbour and to Parramatta along the Parramatta River, with seven of them running from Circular Quay and one from Pyrmont Bay to Watsons Bay. There are six classes of ferries, with three of those being catamarans. The Freshwater class ferries are the large ferries that operate in and out of Manly (when Sydney hosted the 2000 Olympic Games, Collaroy (Freshwater class) carried the Olympic torch across Sydney Harbour); the First Fleet class ferries are the smaller, jaunty little ferries that ply their trade back and forth across the harbour to destinations such as Taronga Zoo and Mosman; Emerald class ferries are the latest introduction to the fleet, replacing the “Lady’ class ferries in 2017, on inner harbour runs; the RiverCat class ferries operate on the Parramatta River and all seven are named after famous female Australian athletes; the HarbourCat class ferries operate on both the Parramatta River and inner harbour lines, and are also named after famous female Australian athletes; and finally the SuperCats which operate on the eastern suburbs and cross harbour lines. A number of private ferry companies also run ferries on Sydney harbour, including the fast ferries to Manly.

International company Transdev has been running Sydney’s public ferry routes (‘on behalf of the NSW government’[5]) since 2012, and has recently won the contract to continue until at least 2028. To celebrate their extended contract they have quietly changed the name from ‘Harbour City Ferries’ to ‘Transdev Sydney Ferries’. They have also raised doubts about keeping the Freshwater class ferries running after next year[6], despite the mooted replacement ferries (Emerald class) only carrying 400 passengers compared to the Freshwater class’s capacity of 1100 passengers. In more privatisation news, developers and infrastructure groups have been asked to submit plans to redevelop and run the wharves at Circular Quay.[7]

[1] https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/ferries

[2] https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/data-and-research/passenger-travel/ferry-patronage/ferry-patronage-top-level-chart

[3] Max Solling and Peter Reynolds 1997. Leichhardt: On the margins of the city. Allen & Unwin.

[4] Ewald, C. 1999. The Industrial Village of Woolwich. The Hunter’s Hill Trust, p24.

[5] https://www.transdev.com.au/media/14136/190227_press-release-transdev-australasia-to-operate-sydney-ferries_final.pdf

[6] https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sydney-s-beloved-manly-ferries-face-prospect-of-last-sailings-20190404-p51awh.html

[7] https://www.realcommercial.com.au/news/shortlist-for-sydney-ferry-wharves-overhaul-narrows-to-two

The Harbour Bridge

22 Sunday Jul 2018

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If you come around under the bridge late in the day you may be treated to a rococo sky of billowing yellow and pink clouds. If it’s dark you’ll see the lights of Luna Park on your right, rotating and blurring in time with the screams of the riders on the Octopus and the Pirate Ship.

Of all the descriptions of Sydney harbour and its bridge, I love this one, from Marjorie Barnard.

Tens of thousands of homes look out over the harbour, every high building in the city has at least a glimpse of it. It is a playground, a waterway. The little beaches are still there, some of them seem as untouched, and the islands, at least from a distance, are as idyllic as ever. It is as beautiful as ever it was for all that the iron shackle of the bridge has been laid upon it.[i]

The Harbour Bridge’s architect, John Job Crew Bradfield, would have been shocked to hear the bridge described so harshly as an ‘iron shackle’. Not only was he providing a much-needed crossing between the northern and southern shores of the harbour, but he believed that the bridge’s ‘structural relationship to the City as a whole, and its place in the surrounding landscape must be taken into account; it must not mar the beauty of its setting.’[ii]

In 2005 I spoke to Bill Gosling about that ‘iron shackle’. Bill Gosling was born in London in 1913 and spent many years at sea on cargo ships, first coming to Sydney in 1928. Sydney was his ‘favourite port’, so he settled here in 1936, getting a job on the waterfront that lasted until he retired in 1973. When I spoke to him he was 92 and, although we didn’t know it, in the last months of his life. He sat crumpled in his chair, and the tape of our interview includes the big clock striking every quarter hour. His breath was going but his mind, his humour and his memory were sharp. There was still a strong man in that tiny frame.

On one of his trips out to Sydney, before he settled down:

… I was on a general cargo boat. We brought a lot of the steel out from England for the Harbour Bridge, which was a bit of a joke, because BHP were making steel here, every bit as good as the English steel.

Is the whole bridge made of English steel? I asked him.

No I don’t think so, but I know we brought a lot out for it. Brought a lot of steel out for the bridge. It might have been only certain sections but the steel they were making here in Australia was every bit as good. But the point was, business often takes over.[iii]

The contract for construction of the Harbour Bridge was awarded to an English firm, Dorman, Long and Co. Ltd in 1924. The calculations, designs and working drawings for the bridge were made in their London office, where staff also prepared complete lists of the materials needed from England and Australia. Iron ore from Yorkshire was made into steel plates at Dorman, Long’s works in Middlesbrough (North Yorkshire – port, Teesport), while steel rolled in Australia at BHP Newcastle used ore from Iron Knob in South Australia.

Milson’s Point was cleared to make workshops for the fabrication of steelwork for the bridge. Engineers from Dorman, Long supervised the work. The workshops were demolished in 1932 when the bridge was opened. Luna Park (1935) and the North Sydney swimming pool (1936) were built on the sites of the workshops.

 

[i][i]The Sydney Book. Written by Marjorie Barnard, drawings by Sydney Ure Smith. Ure Smith, 1947, p11.

[ii]JJC Bradfield 1929. Quoted in a caption at Bridging Sydney, an exhibition at the Museum of Sydney December 2006-April 2007.

[iii]Interview with Bill Gosling, 9 April 2005.