APAM- List of Paddlers Part 1 Modern and Restored Vessels

[Roderick Smith]

I have found the photos, dated 2.2, 25.5 & 14.6.80, raising PS Edwards.
Interestingly, they are straight-sided tenders, not ones with a raised coal zone.
The photos were printed in Oct.80 Newsrail.
I have scanned them, and posted them to a new thread: PS Edwards.

Regards,
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Roderick Smith]

Coming downstream, the river passes 1138 km on the eastern flank of Robinvale (a town serving an irrigation region), then loops around Bumbang Island, and passes the northern flank of the town at 1125 km.
There is a direct channel, perhaps 500 m long, between the two.  However, it is narrow, the navigable channel is narrow, kinks, and passes over a bar with 1.2 m clearance at pool level.  When I came through, the water was more than 50 cm below pool level.
Various boats are moored at 1138 km, including MV Maranoa (mentioned a few posts back) and this unidentified sternwheel monohull houseboat.

Regards,
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Roderick Smith]

Michael has posted a photo of it on the hard, page 7 of the Echuca news thread in the Preserved paddlesteamers forum.

Since placing this post, I have visited the site, and spoken with the owner.
The boat was named after its place of construction: part of Shepparton (the fourth- or fifth-largest provincial city in Victoria).  Portion of the land had been part of Wanganui station; today there are a suburb, street and secondary school (and paddleboat) all named Wanganui.

The boat is mounted on blocks adjacent to Perricoota shearing shed; the owner lives aboard.

Regards,
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Roderick Smith]

A photo of this has appeared somewhere in the preceding 14 APAM pages.  It was moored at Deep Creek Marina when I was there in Jan.07.
On Sun.30.12.07, the boat moved under its own power to Perricoota Homestead (Murray River 1652 km) for renovation work.
I slowed in the morning of Thurs.3.1 to take a photo, but didn't see anyone onboard (around 8.00).  When I returned that afternoon, I still didn't see anyone, but I am sure that the boat had been turned 180 degrees.
I have never been aboard, but I guess that the layout is wheelhouse above kiddie bedroom; kitchen & toilet above engine; gap; master bedroom with rear outlook.

My preceding post in this series referred to PV Wanganui.  I will put up a couple of photos there, as an edit, on Sunday.

Regards,
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[ljhall]

Thanks Roderick,

Michael had mentioned that he had seen this boat somewhere way out of town, which explains why I have never seen it in person.
There are a feew boats that spend a fair bit of time on dry land, another boat that's on private property is the 'Bull Frog', apparently at Undera, VIC. this boat is a fairly small but much more authentic looking example, I have only ever seen 1 photo of it, - its in the Plowman book of 2005, and I think the photo was taken way back in 88.

Most of these contemporary craft have been looked after fairly well, but a few of them haven't had much TLC in recent years and are languishing.
I suppose, taking some of these boats out of the water is a way of preventing them from sinking and also avoiding expensive mooring costs at the same time.

To my knowlege only about 3 contemporary boats have been scrapped; the PV Sundowner C.1981, the PV Barmah Lass and Peter McLeods very first Paddleboat, apparently built out of plywood - I don't have a name for this one though !
For years I thought that the Murray Queen was his first project but I found out recently that it was actually his 2nd boat.
Come to think of it, does anyone out there have any reasonably current photos of the 'Murray Queen', I can't seem to find any on this site.
All I know is that Buster's Cousin Will, has done her up and that she's based somewhere on the Huon River in Southern Tassie, it's either  Huonville or Port Huon, - I can't remember.

Thanks fo keeping us posted on some of these boats which are a bit 'off the beaten track'.

Cheers,

[thewharfonline]

Barmah Lass isn't abandonned- she's now the Barmah under new owners and a distinct new refit- although she's looked like that for as long as I've known her.

Meanwhile sinking the boats actually preserves them a little better- that's what happened to Murray Queen for a time- she was sunk to preserve her timbers. B22 Barge is half submerged for that reason too (I believe)

I didn't think Murray Queen had been restored- last thing I knew she was in Tassie.

Sean

[Roderick Smith]

The boat is at Port Huon.
I have a friend restoring a Hobart tram nearby, and have asked him to obtain a photo, but it hasn't come through yet.

I will ask again.

Regards,
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[ljhall]

Hi Sean,

The 'PS Barmah' was once the 'PV Lady of Barmah', built by Rowley Mc Graw and a group of friends way back in the 70's and she was one of the first contemporary paddleboats built.
When Roley passed away in 93, the boat was decaying and sunk at its mooring, I think she was sold, rebuilt and re-named about 94/95/96.

I'm certain that the PS/PV Barmah Lass was a seperate vessel altogether.
The boat is mentioned in the book 'Riverboat Days', by Peter J. Phillips C. 1983, but there was no photo of it.
It may have even been Peter Mc Leod's first paddleboat, the one that was built out of plywood and ended up being scrapped.
If Peter is still around working on the PS Britannia, maybe someone could ask him about his first boat.

You were spot on with the Murray Queen, she was sunk upstream in the lagoon, to help keep her hull planks preserved, but she was one of very few contemporary paddleboats to have a wooden hull, as many of them have steel hulls, and at least 3 have ferro concrete hulls.
Anyhow, these all react differently to the elements, the Wanganui looks like she has a steel hull, but submerging a steel hulled vessel may not have the same preserving qualities.
I'm not sure why the Wanganui has been taken out of the water, but I imagine that the hull would need some work, and/or it could be to avoid expensive mooring costs, - (or) - the new owner might just like the idea of living on a boat (on land) instead of on the river.
By having the boat high and dry, you can work on the hull at your leisure, without having to use a Slipway.

Buster told me that Will has done quite a lot of work on the Murray Queen, but not sure about the small stoker steam engine and vertical boiler that it had in it.

Thanks,

[Excelsior]

Barmah Lass was definately a seperate boat.  Actually, I'm not even sure it is/was a paddler.  Could it have been a houseboat?  Or are we just confusing it with Colonial Lass?

The Lady of Barmah was sold shortly after Roly McGraw passed away to, I believe, the son of Mac Carling.  This would have been some time in 93.  She was brought to Echuca & tied up at the Carling's home (same place she is currently moored).  She opened up & sank soon after.  I saw her sunk in December 93 & have a couple of photo's of her with only the roof showing above the water.

I think she was salvaged pretty quickly, put up on the Moama slip & spent quite a while being rebuilt.  It was a major rebuild.  Not only was she converted to steam & a new superstructure built, but the hull was made deeper.  I have a couple of pictures Rod Williams gave to me showing her on the slip.  The first shows her as a bare hull before any work started & the 2nd shows the hull rebuilt with the frames for the lower deck on.  When you look at her now the planks painted dark brown about halfway between the waterline & deck were originally the ones the deck sat on.

I wish I'd paid more attention now, but from what I recall, Peter McLeod's first paddle boat was basically a canoe with paddles.  I think it was built in the 60s & I cannot for the life of me remember whether it had a steam engine, or was human powered.  The Murray Queen...  Her engine was removed by her owners prior to being purchased by Adam Auditori & another young guy from the port (can't remember his name) sometime, I think, in 96.  In December 96 she was moored in the wet dock, stripped of superstructure & engines, but with wheels still in place.  Rather short sightedly I didn't take any photos.  Very early pics of the "queen" show she had square boxes.  Her original helm ended up in the Adventurous.  A little off topic, but one of my favourite memories of Echuca is from 96, bringing the Adventurous under the bridge in the dark, without any lights.  This was before the cabin was built in, but she had the roof on.  As I brought her out on the downstream side some kids on the bridge started throwing rocks onto the roof (I'd run up & clobber them now), then I managed to hit something underwater just a bit further downstream...  Not so successul I guess, but I'm still proud of bringing her through the bridge in complete darkness.

[thewharfonline]

Ahh of course, sorry mistake on my behalf!

Barmah Lass was of course a different boat.

[ljhall]

Well there's a few things that I didn't know of, one of my many books has a whole section on the PV Lady of Barmah from its construction through to about 93, so your info has filled me in on what happened afterwards a bit more accurately.
I didn't know that the Murray Queen originally had square paddle boxes, I always thought that they were semi-circular and corregated iron.

In the book 'Riverboat Days', by Phillips, the modern day section at the back mentions the Lady of Barmah, the Barmah Lass and the Colonial Lass, but it only has a photo of the latter, so I doubt that these two boats are 'one and the same'.

By the way, I was sent a message today containg an early photo of the PV Bull Frog, taken at Renmark, SA in 1980, I learnt a few new things here too, the boat was originally called the 'Susan Joy', its much older than I thought and converted from an old milk boat, instead of being built new from scratch.
The photo is in Black and White, but I'll see if I can attach it to this forum.
I'm hoping that the Bull Frog is being restored - it's an unusual little boat !

Cheers,

[Roderick Smith]

If you wade back through this 14 page thread, you will find my notes and photos on both Colonial Lass and Barmah.  IRRC, the latter changed appearance greatly after a substantial rebuilding.
The problem with php software is that, the first or last three pages can be jumped; thereafter all advancing has to be page by page.  There is no way of diving in at page 7 (and since I worked from sea to source, the information should be around 8 or 9).  I haven't tried coming in from a search engine: is there an inbuilt one?

Not yet mentioned in Paddleducks, was the announcement in Frank Tucker's online paddleboat newsletter: 'Well respected and well known Murray skipper Mac Carling passed away on Thursday 27th December 2007. Mac purchased and operated PS Emmylou at Echuca'.
I recall meeting him at Torrumbarry in July, in the gap between two of PS Canberra's cruises there over a weekend with sufficient water to go down through the lock.

Regards,
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Excelsior]

Does anyone know what condition the Bullfrog is in?  With a wooden hull, if she's been sitting out of the water for several years (especially in drought conditions), chances are she's pretty poor.  But, looking closely at the picture in Plowman's book, she's bigger than I originally thought & she has quite a nice hull shape.

[ljhall]

Not sure what condition the 'Bull Frog' is in, I  could ask Michael to try and find out what he can from Adam Auditori.
Michael lives at Merrigum, which is not all that far from Undera, so he may even be able to visit the Bull Frog' current owners at some stage.

Cheers,

[michael]

Gotta see Adam this week so I'll chase up some details from him.