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Mount Pleasant historic ferry

Name: Mount Pleasant historic ferry
Address: PO Box 111, Batemans Bay, NSW, 2602, AU
Telephone: 0438549350

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Mount Pleasant historic ferry

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The Mt Pleasant is a small ferry from the NSW Central Coast/Sydney Harbour. She was launched in 1916, restored in 2013 and is now at Batemans Bay, NSW.

23/10/2026

I managed to get back down to the boat again today - Ewan was able to again lend a hand, which really helped move things forward.

The v-berth roof got sheathed today with epoxy and fiberglass, and a first coat of thickened epoxy to start filling in the weave.

Captions with each pic.

10/10/2026

A nice little clip from Daniel, out on his yacht with his family, which was fantastic to see!

10/10/2026

We took the Mount Pleasant for a run up the river, just checking systems. She’s gained 100rpm with a nice clean bottom. If only things stayed that way - simple solution, use her more often!!!

We got ‘spotted’ by my sister Jen’s spy, and Daniel from King Bros was out on his yacht with his family.

Gorgeous day for it!

09/10/2026

That's been a solid weeks work. I'm pretty happy with progress. Big thanks to my Nephew, Ewan for giving me a helping hand. Pics are captioned..

02/10/2026

Progress…

The V-Berth front is now at the right height and angle to match the other two roof beams. The sides have been cut to length, ready for the new side pieces & corner posts. Next up will be the cutouts for the portholes.

Then the rain came down!!

30/09/2026

She's out of the water for her annual haul out. The King Bros Marine crew have done the anti foul and prop speed. Next task will be a tidy up of the topsides.

I've starting installing lol those home work parts. Wheel house windows front and rear are in, galley windows are in, aft saloon windows are starting to go back in. The new trim's on the port side aft saloon are fitted, so the windows can go in tomorrow..

16/07/2026

The ‘homework’ continues.

That’s pretty much all the varnishing done for the removable bits. 1 coat of Awlwood Red primer, 6 coats of Awlwood MA Gloss with 10% red primer, 2 final coats of straight gloss. Rubbed down with 240 grit after 3 coats and 6 coats.

And the new hatch is coming along. All glued up, now starting to set out the handles and a deck plate. The game plan is to have a solar powered fan vent which drops into the deck plate hole. Pop that out and put in the cover when it’s time to play..the anchor locker and stern locker have been under ventilated for a decade now. My bad!

Aft hatch for reference of kinda where I hope to end up..

02/07/2026

I'm still amazed by the grain of the Sapele Mahogany...photos don't do it justice. Seeing this come to life is a real joy.

Anyway, here's progress as at end of play today. Coat #6 completed, and the grain is filling up nicely. 2 more coats to go, and it's finished. It's far from perfect, but it will do me.

One of my challenges is keeping to the 'scope' of each job. Heck, I dumped the v-berth rebuild in favour of redoing the fixed timber varnish. So I'm seeing the faded varnish on the inside of all this fixed timber, and wanting to give that a freshen up....but nope. Let's get this bit done, and then back to the v-berth.

So I've got a new rule, no taking anything else back home to work on, until the things that I've already taken home, are done.

Looking at these pics, I see sooo many jobs to do. This old boat will keep me entertained for ages :)

02/07/2026

Just back from another 2 days down at the Bay.

The work plan was a quick sand down with 80 grit, followed by varnish coat #4. Nothing else to be done while the varnish dried, pending coats #5 & #6.

So time for an extended proving run to Nelligen and back. I don't remember the last time I took her to Nelligen. Lovely day for it!

26/06/2026

I've just spent a productive 3 days on the boat - and failed to take a pic of the actual work that we we doing...which was redoing the varnish on the superstructure...

Anyway, we've used cabinet scrapers to remove all of the old varnish on most of the fixed solid timber (I'm deferring the plywood replacement). Then sanded with 80 grit. Awlwood MA red primer was applied, then 3x coats of Awlwood MA Gloss, with 10% primer added. The colour is coming up beautifully.

I've also been chasing an overheating issue with the engine, and I think I found the culprit.

Address

PO Box 111
Batemans Bay, NSW
2602

Telephone

0438549350

Website

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