boronia wrote: ↑Fri Oct 29, 2021 8:25 am
Reported elsewhere that
Fairlight is in passenger service today.
Doing a good job of it too, by the look of it.
In this heated debate about vessels being "unsuited" to the Manly run, absolutely nobody realises that right through the 19th century, small, narrow-beamed and often shallow-draft ferries were running the Manly service day in, day out in all weathers. The bows were only built up to main deck level, so they would have been pretty wet and rolled like a drunk after an all-night bender. The Freshwaters are pretty wet at the bow too, not as good a design as the PJMS 20th century boats.
Also, even fewer seem to realise that the main reason for suspending the service over the years was not the seas at the crossing of the heads, but the swell into Manly Cove which makes it difficult to berth and a major disadvantage of the big boats has always been that they would bash the bejusus out of the wharf in these conditions, so stopping the service was as much to prevent damage to the wharf as anything else. So much ignorant hot air blowing about on this one. The Mk 2 Emeralds will be fine.