Mount Pleasant historic ferry

Mount Pleasant historic ferry 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.

The ‘homework’ continues.That’s pretty much all the varnishing done for the removable bits. 1 coat of Awlwood Red prime...
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..

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 jo...
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!

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 w...
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.

I promise it will look better soon...comments in the captions.Most importantly, we have a new ships dog, Rowan. She's a ...
04/06/2026

I promise it will look better soon...comments in the captions.

Most importantly, we have a new ships dog, Rowan. She's a 9 month old Wire Haired Fox Terrier. We look forward to making new memories with her!

We got down to the boat on Friday, those covers are really doing the boat a lot of favours….I got the Sapele lintel and ...
21/12/2025

We got down to the boat on Friday, those covers are really doing the boat a lot of favours….

I got the Sapele lintel and the new 34mm thick solid Sapele front of the v-berth roughed in. I’ve marked it up and will finesse things at home. I may make a new lintel that is a bit thicker than the 20mm one shown. The 2 portholes will be fitted in the same place that they were in the old Sapele faced plywood.

I’m pondering replacing the full roof of the v-berth, there is some osmosis bubbling in the fiberglass top.

More work in the New Year

A few pics from our local shipwrights, Daniel, who was pleased to see that we had the old girl up and running again. As ...
14/08/2025

A few pics from our local shipwrights, Daniel, who was pleased to see that we had the old girl up and running again. As I was just doing a quick sea trial, I didn’t take all the covers and bird pennants off.

14/08/2025

‘Sea trials’ today for the Mount Pleasant, following my seizing and rebuilding the engine. She ran nicely, and I really enjoyed the experience of being back on the river. I’ve got soooo much work to do in her!

Confession time - I temporarily stuffed the engine on the Mount Pleasant. I did the 600hr oil change, and made a mistake...
25/07/2025

Confession time - I temporarily stuffed the engine on the Mount Pleasant. I did the 600hr oil change, and made a mistake with the oil filter. I also changed the heat exchanger (galvanic corrosion), and when I idled the engine to bleed the cooling system, I managed to pump all the oil into the bilge. So the engine seized.

With massive thanks to Peter and lots of YouTube redneck rebuild videos, I’ve been able to hand linish the crank, replace the Conrod and Main Crankshaft bearings (mostly), and got it running again.

I’m still giving myself uppercuts for making such a basic mistake. The good news is that at 600hrs, I think there was some wear in the main crankshaft bearings, so maybe this is preventative maintenance. Also, this Vetus is based on the Mitsubishi S4L2 engine, so parts were pretty readily available.

Pics are captioned.

Another trip to the coast - just for 2 days this time. It took me a bit to get started, and it feels like I didn’t reall...
31/05/2025

Another trip to the coast - just for 2 days this time. It took me a bit to get started, and it feels like I didn’t really move forward by much….

I wasn’t happy with the fit of the locked scarfs. I kinda banged them in quickly, and the joints weren’t where I wanted them. The coach bolts I tried to screw in on the port side snapped…

So I pulled the, all apart, cleaned them up, refitted them. The front deck beam has a 6mm per side expansion gap now, but I’m happy that it’s bedded in properly, with more fasteners to come.

I also swapped out the heat exchanger in the engine, which had some corrosion, and did the coolant service (heat exchanger impeller/check the water pump etc.

Captions under each pic.

Address

27 Beach Road
Batemans Bay, NSW
2536

Telephone

0438549350

Website

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