Baragoola Week Ending 7th July 2012

In attendance: Nick, Ross, Peter C, Peter H, Lance and Glen Visitors: Nil

Upcoming events

28th July – Annual General Meeting of the BPA on board Baragoola – all financial members are encouraged to attend

Historic Manly ferry events this week

13th July 1883 – Breadalbane broken up

Breadalbane

Fundraising Information

Our Indiegogo appeal has finished and we raised $100, this is heading our way and we’re about to start

a campaign on Kickstart as well.. Grill’d at Crows Nest has a tin out for us this week – it will return either

$100 or $300 (we are “competing” with two other charities).

Baragoola Trivia Competition (#2)

This week you can win one of our North Head commemorative mugs if you can answer the following

question correctly (two wrong answers received so far):

All five of Baragoola’s sisters were built at Woolwich – what was the reason for Baragoola being built at

Balmain? (Hint – it had to do with a downturn in Mort’s revenue).

Answers to landover@tpg.com.au – first correct answer wins.

Committee News

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

Membership renewals and AGM packs were posted out four weeks ago Your renewal pack and AGM info pack were posted you should have them by now. It contains a cover letter from our president, an invitation to our AGM (you will need to RSVP) which we are encouraging all members to attend, a renewal form, a proxy form for voting if you can’t attend, committee nomination for and the agenda for the AGM. Attending the AGM is a great way to see your vessel – quite a few of our members have never been on board so this is a perfect opportunity to see her first hand. If you haven’t received your pack please contact us ASAP. Remember, you must be a financial member to participate in the AGM and in the Association generally. Please let us know if you are coming to the AGM as we need to plan numbers, transport to and from Goola and catering – it would be appreciated if you can do this by the end of the week. Reminder letters will go out this week for those members who have not yet returned their renewals, if you are not planning on renewing please let us know so we don’t send one.

Finances

Our bank balance increase by $150.00 this fortnight and there were no outgoings.

This week

A quiet week on board with several notified absences, also cold and damp for most of the week which

didn’t help and our tinny is still out of service (we thought it may have been ready again last weekend,

but unfortunately this didn’t eventuate) which made it difficult to access the vessel. However the small

crew in attendance put in a great effort for which we are very thankful!

The week started off with Peter H coming down earlier on and part of the false surround on the base of

the wheelhouse deck forward end has been removed. This was an intrusion placed on back when David

Ashton had the vessel and it has faired poorly with rot setting in. About half of it has been removed to

re-expose the original metal underneath for the first time in a quarter ofa century – fortunately it has

stood up well. Peter also refastened the footings for the railing above.

Removed fascia and newly installed support footings

Quite a bit of attention has been given to this end lately with deck work, completed roof work and of

course the huge job rebuilding the wheelhouse all in progress and much more planned. The intent is to

largely complete this end as much as possible to be a good indicator of what Goola will look like finished

and so nearly all the crew have been taking turns doing jobs in the area.

Part of that this weekend involved cleaning up the sun deck – it’s become a bit of a dumping ground and

has had a build up of debris from the wheelhouse work above, old seating piled up, plastic coverings and

general dirt that needed to be removed – particularly as much of this was holding water against the

wooden deck.

A thorough clean up and removal of the rubbish exposed the deck and will allow it to dry out – it has

also cleared a lot of debris from the guttering which is good – rain will now run off instead of a sitting

there and soaking through. Very fortunately the timber had not been damaged!

Garbage cleared and the deck drying out nicely

The footings here are another modern intrusion, these will eventually need to be replaced so we can re-

instate the correct ones which will restore drainage patterns and also allow the forward loading doors

(you can just see one through the window in this picture) to fully open again. A ventilator also needs to

be reinstalled in front of that window and its’ mate on the opposite side. These ventilators run right

through to the forward hold and will alleviate some of the damp in that area. No idea why these were

ever taken out but their removal (along with the defeated drainage on this end) has caused problems

that need to be reversed.

This is indeed the case all over the ship where a less than sympathetic earlier restoration attempt has

created multiple issues in many places. However it is all reversible given time, materials and effort and

will result in a marked improvement especially in the interior hull – another area that has been receiving

a great deal of attention of late!

The following image from Stu Mac shows what should be here and what we eventually need to reinstall.

Stuart has kindly donated a huge collection of images of Baragoola and these have been invaluable in

allowing us to determine how certain areas of the vessel need to be restored – without them we’d be

doing a bit of a grope in the dark!

While we are on this end I’ll move on to the wheelhouse – I think Peter C had planned to put in a solid

days’ work on it but he got poached for other duties as soon as he boarded which delayed him

somewhat; however late in the day, with the help of Ross, one of his new doors finally managed to make

it into place!

The rail and the hinges are originals, but actually presented a small problem – that original rail is

somewhat pitted and will need replacing as the door doesn’t move smoothly. Peter says he’ll build

replacements and they’ll be “better than new”

Peter H has also been busy here recently – the entire footing of the wheelhouse is now sealed up and it

was quite noticeable that rain no longer enters the vessel via this area – huge win – thanks guys!

Cleaning continued in the passenger areas well – we need to get the old girl clean and tidy for her big

day on the 28th (AGM) – a few hands next week to assist would be appreciated and will see her scrub up

nicely.

Major work this week was again in the battery compartment with the first of the poor plates that were

identified last week going under a nice slab of concrete. This task took around five hours and involved

Nick, Peter, Ross, Glen and myself all working towards the goal. Under direction of Peter new formwork

to hold the concrete in place was constructed, bagged dry concrete was shifted downstairs, Glen

prepared the mix, the concrete was made up and bucketed to Peter to pack into place. As part of the

preparation chicken wire was laid in place as reinforcement.

Ross and Nick prepare formwork

The confined area we are working in!

Reinforcing mesh being put in place

That entire plate is now done and others will follow until the whole area is safely protected but it is a big

job and needs all hands available to allow it to proceed smoothly. For the reasons we are doing this refer

back to last week’s newsletter.

And that’s it for this week – if you can come down next weekend and give us a hand with cleaning it’d be

vastly appreciated – hopefully our tender will be back but we’ll let everyone know mid-week.

Reminder! Don’t forget your membership renewals!!

Also, let us know if you’re planning on attending the AGM – it’ll be a good opportunity for those of you

who have never been aboard to inspect the work being done to restore your vessel and perhaps inspire

you to help out too!

That’s it for this week – thanks to all that attended and put in such a great job - 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/ManlyFerry 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 baragoola@gmail.com 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 7th of June. 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.

Historic Images

A few shots from Stuart M.