NEWZEALANDS PRIDE, PS WAIMARIE.

[Roderick Smith]

I had a very happy cruise today, and took lots of photos, but they are all fairly standard ones.
There was a crew of six, and I got to chat with all.
I also got to steer for 10-15 min: very twitchy.  Constant correction was needed, with a full turn of slack before any effect.

The boat lookes beautiful, with lots of polished wood and brass.  The engineroom is very clean.
The exhaust was very audible and steady.  The engine (two double-acting cylinders) had direct drive.
The river looked good: different banks from my familiar ones from home, and seen at their best in sun.

I will post more tomorrow when I am back home.

Regards,
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Roderick Smith]

I took about 20 photos, some of which replicate the existing photo posts in this thread.
Here are two.
One shows the feathering paddle.  I didn't get the chance to ask about this.  There is an existing post of one of these paddles inside the museum display.  I also didn't explore the toilet in the sponson cabin.  It seems that there cannot be full headroom in the compartment, as the main cabin is recessed into the hull (but not right to the keel; there are freshwater and greywater tanks under the saloon floors).
The other shows the arrangement at the stern, with stairs down into the rear saloon, and up onto the promenade deck.  The boat is licensed for ~150 passengers.  IIRC 120 max on the upper deck.
The arrangement of decks is what I advocated in miniature for Michael's Sundowner rebuild.  It provides stability, yet shallow draft.  The skipper told me that the boat is drawing ~60 cm (less when not fully laden).
Being a coalburner, the fuel space required is much smaller than needed on a woodburner.

Regards,
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Roderick Smith]

I enclose a pdf (488 kB) of the doublesided A4 sheet of technical specifications of the boiler & engine, plus some history.  It was handed to me by the very friendly engineer, who answered my many questions about feedwater, fuel and lubrication.
The vessel runs on straight river water, with about two blowdowns per hour.
The two feedwater pumps are driven from the engine, and so are useful only when cruising.
The injector is used when lighting up, but it draws from the freshwater tank, so it is not useful when cruising.
The coal is from Huntly (south of Auckland), in fairly small lumps.  The engineer kept a fairly shallow fire.  It is of lower calorific value than railway-loco grades, and is used mainly to feed a large powerstation.
Although passengers are warned to look out for sparks from the funnel, I didn't see any.
Most of the lubrication is by gravity wick; there was one pumped lubrication point.  There were only two points requiring regular hand lubrication.
The coal bunkers were much more compact than the eqivalent wood stowage with which I am more familiar.
The wheelhouse on the upper deck is open, with direct voice communication to the engineer, so no bells are installed.
The river is tidal for the whole reach covered by this boat.
It had been moored facing upriver, against a falling tide.  The breeze wasn't severe.  The captain backed against a stern spring line to get the bow off the jetty.  I had wondered if there would be enough depth at the stern, and there was.  The boat then moved off upriver.
Docking (facing upriver) involved a bit of juggling, as the desired position is with the front deck against the jetty, and the paddlebox projecting into the gap between the jetty and a mooring dolphin.
Others have commented on the speed and silence of operation.  Within the saloons, little was audible.  On the upper deck, the exhaust was quite pronounced.  Paddlewheel noise was fairly localised.  I wonder if feathering paddles run more quietly than nonfeathering ones?
For this cruise, the boat was sitting on 7 kt [13 km/h].  It can achieve over double this, and does so in the annual river race: paddlesteamer v racing-eight rowing boats.  The speed of 10.5 kt in the brochure may refer to normal service speed, which is generally avoided in tourist cruises.

On Thurs.30 & Fri.31.10, there would be two cruises per day, to handle large tour groups.
On my Tues.28.10 14.00 cruise there were not many people.  This was the day after a long weekend (bank holiday for UK readers), when there had been many people aboard.  One passenger was from Canada, and has his own 10 m fishing boat, which he has taken through the locks and ship lifts of Peterborough - Trent Canal and Rideau Canal, Ontario.  He not only steered, he took up the invitation to fire a few shovels of coal.

The operating crew is a captain, two engineers, two deckhands and a steward.  On this cruise, a former captain was along for the ride, and shared the steering and gave me my lesson.

As with many other places in the world, unsympathetic road bridges block navigation.  To take the boat to its slipway (survey slipping every 2 years), the wheelhouse and half of the funnel have to be unbolted; the boat can ease under the two downriver bridges at the lowest point of the tide, then has to wait for the rising tide to have sufficient water to get onto the slip.  There are plans to rebuild the original side slipway, opposite the wharf, as the operation has two boats (PS Waimarie, MV Wairua for longer charters, and is working on the long-term restoration of MV Ongarue).

Regards,
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Roderick Smith]

The aim was to take a set of photos which would help modellers; I didn't succeed.
With the plans available readily, I took only general-effect photos, and didn't dangle my tape measure in any.
Here are the four engineroom photos: exactly what won't be modelled, but probably of the greatest interest to the greatest number.
I guess that there is no superheater: can superheater elements be installed in a water-tube boiler?
Superheating wasn't common in Murray-Darling boats, but did exist.  The boiler built for Billy Tea (and subsequently removed for the sale of the vessel) was superheated.  Many paddlesteamers got saturated boilers second-hand when railway locomotives were being rebuilt with superheated boilers.

Regards,
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Roderick Smith]

Today, three photos of the interior of the fore saloon.  Here it has been set up for normal cruising.  For charters, the tables can be rearranged and extra ones added.  The bar servery is at the bow end and is fairly compact.  Notice the need for a shelf on the stove to provide sufficient working space.  The forepeak contains bulk storage, a refrigerator and a microwave oven.  There is a step down, because the saloon sits above the main fresh-water tank, and the forepeak has to sit below deck level.
The interior looks very smart: polished wood, and brass fittings.  Even the 230 V power point had the antique porcelain & brass look.  I was recharging my laptop, but tucked it out of sight under the stairs so as not to spoil the period look.

Whanganui River is the longest navigable river in NZ.  It was navigated in three stages (different boat styles) to Taumaranui, and there was some navigation on the tributary Ongarue River (which had its confluence there).  Waikato River is longer, but has been broken by innumerable dams for hydroelectric projects.  Both were major transport routes before North Island Main Trunk railway was completed (1908).  Both were used for tourist cruising, and Hatrick ran a major guesthouse along the the river.  Rangitikei River has some spectacular cliff sections, and is popular whitewater recreational and jetboating territory today.  Not in this list (it is shorter) is Manawatu River, which was navigable in its lower reach and had steam boats towing barges of flax from farm to mill.  Today, the Manawatu Gorge reach is popular recreational territory.  The South Island rivers tend to be very wide and very rocky and very shallow: not navigable for commercial boats, and tricky even for kayaks for much of the year.

NZ's longest ten rivers:
Waikato River (NI) - 425 km
Clutha River or Matau River (SI) - 322 km
Whanganui River (NI) - 290 km
Taieri River (SI) - 288 km
Rangitikei River (NI) - 241 km
Mataura River (SI) - 240 km
Waiau River, Southland (SI) - 217 km
Clarence River (SI) - 209 km
Waitaki River (SI) - 209 km
Oreti River (SI) - 203 km

www.riverboats.co.nz (home page for the cruises)

The other relevant threads in Paddleducks:
New Zealand paddlesteamers, in this Preserved Paddle Steamers section www.paddleducks.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=2541.0 (includes the Waimarie brochure, and photos of it steaming)
NZ Paddle Ships on Waikato River, in the Research section.
http://www.paddleducks.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=2893.0

www.riverboat.homestead.com (home page not working when I tested it), use
http://riverboats.homestead.com
or http://riverboats.homestead.com/MainMenu.html
www.riverboats.homestead.com/WaimarieSurvey.html (photos on the slip)
www.riverboats.homestead.com/Waimarie.html (other photos)

Regards,
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Roderick Smith]

Two themes today: the aft cabin (fitted with an auxiliary bar for busy days) and deck scenes.
Notice that the boat carries the marks indicating that it has limited manoeuvrability.
I gain the impression that a winch was even more important on NZ rivers than on Australian ones: winching over rapids/shallows would be a regular event.

Regards
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[michael]

Hey Rod, Luke and Cheri (Billy Tea builder) were onboard a week after you were there. They said the crew were still talking about you!

[Roderick Smith]

I conclude the selection from my Tues.28.10.08 visit and cruise.
MV Ongarue has been rescued, and treated cosmetically to prevent further deterioration, but a lot of work will be needed for a full restoration (there is a lot of hull corrision).  It isn't paddle, but the use of a tunnel screw is interesting, and common in NZ rivers.  The arrangement protected the screw from damage in shallow rivers with rocky bases, and allowed a screw vessel to have a shallow draft.  I was in a wooden tunnel-screw launch at Goolwa a month earlier, but couldn't photograph the arrangement.
MV Wairua is used for charters, and goes further up the river.
Being a passenger on the only cruise of the day meant that I couldn't get a photo of the boat steaming along, but there are some in the other links which I posted yesterday.

'The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about'.  (Oscar Wilde)

Regards,
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor