P.S.CUMBEROONA

[David Allinson]

Hi there.
Just wanted to draw your attention to the full page spread in this months issue of OLD GLORY magazine, which covers the P.S.Cumberoona in some detail. She is a live steam ship with two American Buffalo Pitts steam engines and a package boiler. She is owned by the Aldbury City Council and leased to an operator to run trips on the Murray river around Aldbury.
How many councils in the UK would do something like that??
While OLD GLORY covers mostly old iron of one sort or another it does try to cover the paddleship scene. Colin Tyson (editor) would be very glad to receive any reports of paddlesteamer news.
Here is the reference to the magazine
http://www.oldglory.co.uk/

All the best
David Allinson

[thewharfonline]

PS Cumberoona is only relativly new. I was gonna go on it on my holiday but the river dropped, I'm pretty sure I uploaded a photo of her for anyone interested.

The thing with Albury is it used to be a working port on the river but when the wier was built in yarrawonga without a lock it basically cute off Albury. The only way to get a ship down to albury is to remove it from the river now.

So to relive the heritage of what Albury used to be they built the cumberoona a working steam paddle steamer (by working I mean when the river is high enough) and thats really all thats left of the era (and its not even from the era but she looks nice)

[Roderick Smith]

I cruised on PS Cumberoona in mid 2006.  The captain related an interesting story of being stuck on a sandbar only a couple of weeks earlier; passengers were brought back to port in tinnies; the boat was secured.  Next morning it was afloat again: the bar had shifted.

Because of hydro generation at Hume Dam, the river is subject to very rapid level changes, overlaying medium-term level changes because of release policies from Dartmouth Dam and Hume Dam.

The current lessee did not renew when his 3 year lease expired.  Water levels permitted cruising for only 1 of the 3 years.  In between, the boat was used for static functions at its berth, alongside Noreuil Park (home to the visitor centre, a museum, and the famous Hovell Tree).

The boat is sitting usused, with its owner (Albury City Council) taking care of it.  The council wants to slip the boat, check the hull for condition, and undertake any necessary repairs.  However, there is insufficient water to reach the slip (in Wodonga Creek).  Council is also considering changing the propulsion to dual (steam plus diesel).

When I was in Albury in August (returning from a ski week), the water was below the end of the public boat ramp.  I was also in Albury on Sun.26.11.  The section upstream of Lincoln Causeway (ie where Cumberoona could never reach) had swimmers standing midstream, with water only to their knees.

Cumberoona has been written up in an APAM thread; there is a photo in the pool for random selection for the opening page.

Also in Albury yesterday was MV 'Spirit II', a 40 seat monohull cruising ferry normally based at Goolwa (SA).  This pioneered the company's public Murray cruises Wellington - Border Cliffs, and Border Cliffs - Mildura (plus Darling River and Chowilla Creek).  Those runs now use a newer vessel, catamaran MV 'Spirit of the Murray'.  The older one would have been deployed once per year for a Mildura - Echuca and vv cruise, but water levels did not allow that to take place in 2006 (the planned inaugural run) or 2007.  However, the company put on a special cruise advertised only to patrons of earlier cruises.  It trucked Spirit II to Echuca for an Echuca - Albury voyage, including craning it out of the water at Yarrawonga to be trucked around Yarrwonga Weir (built in 1938 without a lock).  The downstream voyage left Albury on Sunday morning, before I had arrived from Melbourne.  The craning around the weir should take place on Monday afternoon.  Further nights at Tocumwal and Picnic Point, for arrival in Echuca on Thursday afternoon.  AFAIK this is the only journey; the boat will be roaded back to Goolwa.

I have a report on water levels in the lowest section.  Goolwa lock is not to be opened.  The water is so low at Mannum that one of the two vehicular punts may have to cease operation.

Regards,
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Roderick Smith]

The political battle continues, indecisively.  The boat is hardly a replica of PS Emmylou, and isn't a replica of the original PS Cumberoona either.  It was built as a bicentennial project, using local money.  The lessee in 2006 wanted to deploy it seasonally at Yarrawonga (reliable water), but was not allowed to do so.

From Fri.23.7.10 Albury 'Border Mail'

1700 sign to save steamer
Albury councillor Philomena Sawyer believes retention of the Cumberoona paddlesteamer is a critical part of the proposed riverside tourism precinct at Noreuil Park.  A petition to save the Cumberoona with 1700 signatories was tabled at the council's community and cultural committee meeting on Monday night when Cr Sawyer reaffirmed her support for the boat.  "I just think we are spending a lot of money on tourism and we are spending a lot of money attracting people to this region," Cr Sawyer said.  "We are also going to be spending a considerable amount of money on the Murray River Experience and in my mind the Cumberoona is integral to that.  "Without the Cumberoona I can't really support the Murray River, Experience."  Council was also presented with the results of a community survey conducted in 2001 which revealed less than 15 per cent of visitors to Albury intended to take a cruise on the Cumberoona.  Two per cent of households in Albury were also surveyed at the time and 81 per cent of residents rejected the statement that "the only people who benefit from the Cumberoona is the tourists coming to the area".  Of the residents surveyed, 48 per cent indicated that tourists and locals used the vessel equally and 11 per cent felt the main users were local.  Cr Sawyer conceded the Cumberoona was a replica of the Emmylou which cruises at Echuca, but still had some historical signficance.  "It is a replica but it does say what this community started off being," she said.  "It does link us to the Murray River and really tells the story that without the Murray and without paddlesteamers Albury wouldn't be the thriving place it was in the early days.  "I just think it's a no-brainer to keep it."

[michael]

No ont a replica, but was designed by the same fellow who did Emmylou. She has been sitting on the slip for nearly a year now with no work being done, a fair amount will be needed before she goes back in the waterm especially to the bottom of the steel hull around the boiler, as it has holes in it!!!