Baragoola Week Ending 21st April 2012 In attendance: Gary, Nick, Glen, Ernie, Geoff E and Lance Visitors: Nil Upcoming events 27 th April – Austin car Club talk 28 th April – Heritage Week talk at Manly Library (11:30am) TBC June – Lady Denman Museum visit (day tour – tentative at this stage, more info to come) 28 th July – Annual General Meeting of the BPA on board Baragoola – all financial members are encouraged to attend – details closer to the event Historic Manly ferry events this week 26th April 1910 – Bellubera launched 28 th April 1872 – Culloden wrecked
Transcript
Baragoola Week Ending 21st April 2012
In attendance: Gary, Nick, Glen, Ernie, Geoff E and Lance Visitors: Nil
Upcoming events
27th April – Austin car Club talk 28th April – Heritage Week talk at Manly Library (11:30am) TBC June – Lady Denman Museum visit (day tour – tentative at this stage, more info to come) 28th July – Annual General Meeting of the BPA on board Baragoola – all financial members are encouraged to attend – details closer to the event
Historic Manly ferry events this week
26th April 1910 – Bellubera launched 28th April 1872 – Culloden wrecked
Baragoola Trivia
Did you know that in the 1950s Baragoola was considered for the Mosman to Circular Quay run? This
was during a strike on the inner harbour ferries, as the PJ&MSS Co ran both they were able to do this
(the strike did not affect the Manly ferries). Fortunately the strike ended before she suffered the
ignominious fate of being a (temporary) harbour ferry!
Volunteers Corner
Peter Hounslow is our roof repair man.
How did you get involved with the Baragoola restoration? I saw an editorial in the Manly Daily about the Baragoola. I had always had a soft spot for the boat since she was my 7.20am ride to school from Manly wharf for about five years. What are your top priorities this year on Baragoola? To stop rain water leaking through the roof. What is the best thing about volunteering on Baragoola?
The sense of achievement. Learning techniques and methods from my fellow volunteers. It keeps me fit. It is a very pleasant environment restoring a ferry in Sydney harbour. What interests do you have outside of Baragoola? I am a woodwork enthusiast. Any justification for buying a new tool to do something I haven’t done before. I like fixing things or constructing something to fulfill a process or function more efficiently. I enjoy fixing things around the house and friends houses. I am mildly interested in ferries although the Bara is my main drive in that area. I am interested in the grey funnel line and have been ever since my schoolboy days of travelling on the Manly ferry. How long have you been volunteering on Baragoola? 23 months, since the 8th May 2010 If you could have dinner with three people, who would they be? 1. My parents (who died 33 years ago) 2. Erwin Rommel 3. Spock (not Leonard Nimoy) and on the Enterprise. My maternal grandmother, Allan Turing and Pericles What do you do for a living? Retired
Committee News
Next committee meeting will be on board Baragoola on the second Saturday in June – all financial members are welcome to attend as observers
Annual General Meeting will be held on Baragoola on the last Saturday in July – this is one we strongly encourage all members to attend as we will be electing the committee for the next year and presenting the financial records for the last year
A General Meeting will be held on board Baragoola shortly and details will be sent out – we are planning on changing our constitution and changing the membership dues for the next financial year – again all members will be asked to vote on the proposed changes and are strongly encouraged to attend – information will be mailed out shortly
And so onto the work! Not too many about this weekend and the work tended to be concentrated so a fairly short newsletter I’m afraid…. Some very, very heavy rain earlier in the week had wrought havoc with our workboat overwhelming its pump and partially submerging it – this is not good as we rely heavily on it and with it out of service it will make life very difficult for us. The worst thing is the engine was submerged and we await the prognosis – expecting the worst though and that will be a very expensive item to replace if required. Special thanks to Ernie and Gary who raised the boat; Gary spent most of Saturday taking the engine apart and getting the boat back into order again. We lost a few things from it; main items that went are the oars.
Fortunately though, Baragoola was remarkably dry (apart from some rainwater in the bilges), for that I am very, very pleased! A bit of running around early in the day by Glen and myself to get parts for the air hose so we could continue removing rust saw a delayed start to the day, so not a great deal of the forward deck managed to get done this week, but of course, every little bit counts!
Small section stripped back, rust removed and ready for repair This deck is turning out to be a monumental task, three of us are taking turns at it but there remains something like 95% or more of it to do – contrast it to the aft one that needs very little work. The theory is the aft one was replaced at some time whereas this one has not, there’s no other way to explain the difference between the two. Ultimately the forward deck will need replacing in some sections – in the meantime we need to stabilise what remains and prevent further decay that ultimately causes holes and water running into the areas below. A slow job indeed. While I was busy with that, Glen worked on restoring the brass on the forward staircase – long neglected it needed some very hard work to bring it back to its original condition. He’s been told he needs to keep it polished
Brass on the staircase hand railing
Main work was of course downstairs and most of us spent our time there this week. Ernie removed nearly all the accumulated rubbish from the engineers’ quarters in preparation for this space becoming a secure lockup and workroom. As well he also did some further work on the forward gearbox – not too sure what he got up to as he runs away when a camera is poked in his face Nick and Geoff continue working on the hull plates in the engine room. This is the biggest single hold on the vessel and consequently needs the most work. Naturally it’s also the worst one to work in because of the equipment and pipes up against the hull making it very difficult to get in to some spaces. With the engines in place it is also very hard getting under them to remove rubbish, mud, debris and tools (and other dropped items) that is under them. Slow and painstaking but the effort is well worth it as once cleaned off the plates can then be treated to prevent any further rust. This is not a ‘glamour’ job but is absolutely the most important piece of work occurring on the vessel at the moment and something that we need much more help with. Each plate gets quite a working over; first, the old paint and flake rust plus any dirt, grease, mud and rubbish is removed, next the plate is washed down with a low pressure blaster to shift any remaining detritus, and then the plate is treated with a rust inhibitor before receiving a coat of anti rust red paint.
Each plate can require three work days to get to this stage. After this it will eventually receive a couple of coats of high gloss white or opaline blue – this bit is in the future though.
Hull section before remedial work has started
Nick and Geoff at work; some improvements can be seen already
The remaining work saw some red anti rust paint go onto sections in both the engine room and control room.
Engine room – aft, starboard, plates treated with anti rust paint
Control room, aft, starboard
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’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 is on Saturday the 28th of April. We’ll send out the usual reminder mid week. There will also be people here most days throughout the week – ring ahead and check first.
