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.

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.

That’s us done for this stint - she’s back in her berth, all the covers are back on and we’ll get down to do more work ...
03/05/2025

That’s us done for this stint - she’s back in her berth, all the covers are back on and we’ll get down to do more work as soon as we can (hopefully really soon!). The side and front carlins are in place with high strength goop. And seem to be aligned pretty well.

The front window frames had rot in them, so I cut them off, and have taken them home to replace the rotten bits. Hopefully they will be pretty quick to re-instate.

More progress, I’ve prepared the locked scarf on the port and starboard deck carlins. The bow Carlin has been prepped an...
02/05/2025

More progress, I’ve prepared the locked scarf on the port and starboard deck carlins. The bow Carlin has been prepped and primed using Dulux all metal primer instead of red lead.

Those of a delicate disposition should look away now…So after 8+ years in all weathers, the plywood for the front of the...
30/04/2025

Those of a delicate disposition should look away now…

So after 8+ years in all weathers, the plywood for the front of the V-Berth was looking very, very sick. A lot of this was because I’d failed in the water management off the roof. I didn’t attend to it when I should have, so now the time has come.

Further comments under the pics..

We finally made it down the coast - we’ve had covers made, which we hadn’t had a chance to take a look at. They look gre...
01/03/2025

We finally made it down the coast - we’ve had covers made, which we hadn’t had a chance to take a look at. They look great and will keep the bright work protected. Hopefully that’s the end of the revarnishing. Only took 15mins or so to get them off, and they don’t take up too much room. We fitted 2 solar powered dome vents, as ventilation is now a bit of an issue.

Then a quick trip up the river to the Wray Street Oyster shed for a late lunch.

We had a productive visit yesterday, installing the new gunwhale rubbers. Having a warmer day would have made them softe...
15/11/2024

We had a productive visit yesterday, installing the new gunwhale rubbers. Having a warmer day would have made them softer and easier to apply, on the other hand, it would have been tough working conditions!!!

Looking much better now, and we even had a run up the river today with mum and dad, and long term family friends.

This weeks workday - managed to get a coat of deck paint on. There are some zips in the epoxy/glass which we need to gri...
08/11/2024

This weeks workday - managed to get a coat of deck paint on. There are some zips in the epoxy/glass which we need to grind back to fix properly, but we need to haul her out for that. It’s not an ‘on the water’ job.

Address

27 Beach Road
Batemans Bay, NSW
2536

Telephone

0438549350

Website

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