Baragoola Fortnight Ending 17th November

2012

In attendance this fortnight (members): Ernie, Geoff E, Geoff L, Glen, Peter H, Peter M, Nick, Kaia and Lance Visitors: Four

Upcoming events

Baragoola Preservation Association Member Christmas Party 15th December – open to all members and volunteers, details will be sent out shortly.

Historic Manly ferry events this week

24th November 1958 – Narrabeen II wrecked

Fundraising Information

We need to raise an additional $25,195 in the next couple of months and all donations are very

welcome. Donations $2 and above are tax deductible so please consider making a donation to help save

this very last original Manly ferry for generations to come. We’re also looking for some equipment

donations – in particular a 12KVa or higher diesel generator for backup power and to provide extra

power for more tools so that repairs and restoration can proceed quicker (we have extremely limited

shore power at the moment).

Committee News

We’re now on Google+ if you’d like to start following us – largely the content mirrors what’s on our facebook page - https://plus.google.com/b/112509295720850964216/112509295720850964216

Finances

Our bank balance did not change this week.

From the editor

Our new postal address: PO Box 374 Crows Nest, NSW, 1585 Please ensure you address any correspondence to this address in future. Over the coming weeks and months we will be increasing our fundraising activities and looking at ways to vastly ramp up our ability to earn money. The restoration of Baragoola needs a large sum of money – we are totally funded by donations and will be seeking ways to interest large commercial donors and sponsors – for this we need the help of all association members and are looking to the broader membership to assist. The small amounts we gain through private donations and sale of items is enough for the day to day running of the association, but we need some serious money if we are to achieve our goal of getting Baragoola slipped and the hull repaired (or areas replaced as needed) if we are to keep this important heritage item going as a viable entity for many years to come. We are asking all our members to assist with this task and helping us find the sort of funding we need – this is something we hope all our members and friends can help out with.

Our sites

Have you visited our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/ManlyFerry ? It’s updated (sometimes several times a day) and is one of our primary methods of communicating with the public at large. We’ve got over 100 ‘likes’ so far! There’s quite a few videos posted there as well. Our posts are also being distributed to a wider audience by another Facebook page called What’s On Northern Beaches? (http://www.facebook.com/Whatsonnorthernbeaches) (not affiliated to us) which is a great resource for people living on the peninsula – check it out. Our main source of important information is our own site at http://baragoola.com.au For people with an interest in Sydney’s ferries (past and current) we have a sister site at http://www.ferriesofsydney with a very activity community forum and on a wider rage, our other sister site Forgotten Sydney (http://www.firgotten Sydney) is all about Sydney’s historical past. Our new Google+ page is at

https://plus.google.com/b/112509295720850964216/112509295720850964216

Souvenir items

Recently we introduced some new promotional items and they are in limited quantities so if you want one you’ll need to get in quickly. For the first time we have caps and indeed we had to refresh the order twice to cope with demand! If you want an item, send your details (name and address and what you want) in an email to media@baragoola.com.au. Prices – Mugs $20 including delivery, key rings $20 including delivery and caps $30 including delivery. A special offer of the PJ&MSS Co mug, cap and keyring can be purchased as a set for $60 for the set.

Bellubera and South Steyne

Baragoola in PTC colours

South Steyne

PJ & MSS logo from the 1920s

This fortnight

If you’re wondering why we didn’t produce a newsletter last week it’s because it would have been

rather short as for the last couple of weeks we have been concentrating mainly on hull details. So this

newsletter is a combination of the preceding two weeks.

A big welcome to our newest volunteer Kaia who came along with Geoff and spent her entire day with

him on the hull in the Engine Room – and between the two of them managed to get a huge chunk of

work done; just goes to show that even one person can make a monster of a difference to the work

pace!

The hull has of course been receiving a huge amount of attention in the last few weeks; it is our number

one priority – as we’ve stated time and again no hull=no ship so it is critically important for all

volunteers to put in a bit of time on this first before heading off to do other tasks. In particular we’ve

been concentrating on the Battery Compartment – this area had suffered badly over Baragooola’s long

service life having been a very wet area due to the methods employed to cool the shaft. As a result

some of the plates are in very poor condition. To address this in the medium term we have been

identifying thin and damaged plates and using the trusted method of reinforcing them with concrete;

this will ensure that no leaks or weeps will threaten the integrity of the vessel until she eventually gets

slipped. It’s not a quick job (although our new concrete mixer makes things a lot faster than doing it by

hand!) and of course we need quite a bit of concrete pre-mix. The bags of concrete are relatively cheap

(around $6 or $7 dollars) and we also need structural grout – we’re asking anyone who comes down to

donate a couple of bags each time, these are, of course, a tax deductible donation and I can’t stress just

how much this small donation is so important to the vessel.

The main section we are concentrating on in the Battery Compartment is on the forward end, port side

as it exhibits the most damage. One of the stringers here is eroded badly (the other two are fine) over a

length of a few feet and this corresponds with the poorest sections of shell plating as well. Initially we’ll

complete the concreting and the sister the poor section of stringer.

Three plate sections have now been completed in this area and we are targeting two more next

weekend (materials permitting – we need ten bags of concrete to do the job) with around three more

sections then to be completed on the worst plates.

Each section is prepared by cleaning any loose debris from the surface first, followed by inserting steel

mesh to help maintain the structure and then the concrete goes on.

The above image shows part of the process and also shows the damaged stringer that will need some

further work after the plates are safely embedded.

Did I mention we also need the steel mesh? This is also another cheap donation for anyone willing to

contribute towards the effort and like the concrete is tax deductible too!

We have a great little chain gang going – one opens the bags, one mixes, one buckets and one person

concretes – makes the job go quite quickly – around an hour for each section compared to half a day

using our old manual method – again, the concrete mixer makes short work of the task and we don’t

wear ourselves out doing it!

Peter cuts the steel mesh to size

Nick laying the concrete

The three sections completed over the last fortnight – safe and secure!

Work in the Engine Room by Geoff and Kaia resulted in a huge section of the hull receiving its initial

work with both of them cleaning, chipping and scraping away years of rust flake and debris exposing

remnant original paint and getting it ready for further remediation work. An excellent effort by these

two and the results are amazing!

The whole section from where Kaia is working right back to the fuel bunker has now received the first

part of work that it requires.

After the wash down it now remains for a little more work on these plates before they are ready to be

rust treated and then ultra sound tested to check for any potential bad spots before going under a few

coats of paint. This area (which is unobstructed) has been earmarked to have the blue and white applied

to “show off” the area – can’t wait! But that’s still a few weeks away yet.

Ernie spent some time stripping back the streamline filter for EE#1 and it has scrubbed up well, more

stripping to be done yet but it’s great to see it emerging from the years of neglect.

A big effort has been put in over the last few weeks on the forward vent with many (many!) layers of paint having been stripped back to expose the base metal – still a little more work to be done to finish stripping it but after that it will be ready to go white again – and without the underlying rough surface it’ll look as good as new. What we thought was rust pitting was actually the underlying paint – it’s quite smooth and will come up a real treat when finished.

Peter has been very busy of late with the repairs to the deckhead on the top deck next to the aft stairs; this is a multi pronged attack as simply replacing the rotted out timbers isn’t enough – water also has to be stopped from getting into it again. The largest area where this is happening is the funnel and he’s put a lot of effort into repairing the funnel, the shroud and the area around the base of the whole funnel assembly. As well, he spent last weekend closing off the ventilation under the funnel which is the single largest access point for rain water.

All in all, a great couple of weeks with much work being completed that will see the ferry in a safer and drier condition – although this in itself is not without its problems as we’ve noted in some parts where the timber, long wet, has finally dried out and is shrinking in some areas – still that’s far better than rot! That’s it for this week, we hope to see a few extras next Saturday to help out with the all the work on board! If you are on Facebook you can follow us at https://www.facebook.com/ManlyFerry 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 baragoola@gmail.com as a friend. And, last but not least, we also have a flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/65669741@N08/ For general business you should call our message bank on 02 9294 3168 and leave a message – we’ll return your call pretty quickly as this is checked daily.

Historical Images

Narrabeen II