Namesake North Head
Barrenjoey Route Manly Launched 8 May 1913 Builder Mort's Dock | Port of registry Sydney Cost £32,000 Tonnage 499,000 kg | |
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Name MV North Head
formerly SS Barrenjoey Operator Port Jackson & Manly Steamship Company
Public Transport Commission
Urban Transit Authority | ||
The MV North Head (formerly SS Barrenjoey) was a ferry operated by the Port Jackson & Manly Steamship Company and its successors on the Manly service from 1913 until 1985.
History
The North Head was built by Mort's Dock, Woolwich for the Port Jackson & Manly Steamship Company. Launched in 1913, it was the fifth of six Binngarra type vessels and nearly identical to the Balgowlah and Bellubera. It was named after Barrenjoey at the northern tip of Pittwater. In 1930, received its first refit which saw much of the upper deck enclosed and the wheelhouses extended.
In 1948, it was withdrawn for a rebuild by Mort's Dock which included the replacement of its steam engines with British Thomson-Houston diesel-electric engines. It emerged on 7 May 1951 having been renamed North Head. In 1964, it was sent to Melbourne for the Moomba Festival for six weeks. It returned to Melbourne in 1965 and 1967.
North Head was included in the sale of the business to Brambles in April 1972, and again to the Public Transport Commission in December 1974.
With the Freshwater class ferries having settled down, North Head was withdrawn on 12 December 1985, 72 years after entering service. On 26 March 1987, North Head departed under its own steam for Hobart for use as a floating restaurant and convention centre. In 2000, it was sold and moved to Cairns to be used in the same manner. However, after the venture failed, the ship rotted in a Cairns dock until 2005, when it was sold on eBay to a landscape contractor.