Three of Sydney’s four large Manly ferries to be kept in operation

Three of the four large Manly ferries will be operating on the busy route by the middle of next year following multimillion-dollar upgrades while a fourth Freshwater-class vessel is likely to be retired due to maintenance challenges.

Amid high demand for ferry services during the Vivid festival, the Labor government plans to return the Queenscliff to the Manly-Circular Quay route in November, in time for the busy summer period. The vessel will undergo major restoration work, which will include a dry docking at Garden Island.

The Narrabeen and Queenscliff ferries moored side-by-side at Cockatoo Island on Monday.Credit: Nick Moir

The Queenscliff has been tied up at Cockatoo Island alongside the Narrabeen, which is now scheduled to be back on the Manly route by the middle of next year once major repairs are completed. It will cost about $16 million to refurbish and dry dock each vessel before they join the Freshwater ferry, which has remained in operation on Sydney Harbour.

However, the future of the Collaroy, which has been carrying passengers, remains in doubt because its operational and maintenance requirements are different to the other three Freshwater-class vessels. The Collaroy is expected to be pulled from service in September, and is likely to be retired.

The plans for the Freshwater-class ferries have changed multiple times over the last four years, which included a U-turn on the Queenscliff’s formal retirement in 2021. Under the previous government’s plans, both the Collaroy and Narrabeen were due to be retired this year.

Complicating matters, three smaller Emerald-class catamaran ferries that were purchased to replace the larger vessels on the Manly route have been plagued with defects and steering failures since they entered service in late 2021.

Transport Minister Jo Haylen and Premier Nick Minns inspect the Queenscliff on Tuesday.Credit: Nick Moir

Premier Chris Minns said the Freshwater-class vessels were the “old faithful” of the harbour, and they needed to be brought back into service due to the unreliability of the overseas-built ferries that were bought to replace them on the Manly route.

Asked whether the new Emerald-class ferries would be removed from the Manly route, Minns said operational decisions would be made once the Queenscliff and Narrabeen were pressed back into service.

“We can’t have a situation particularly over summer where demand increases exponentially over the school holidays, and we don’t have the spaces for them to do the run between Sydney and Manly,” he said.

Action for Public Transport spokesman Graeme Taylor said long queues for ferries at Circular Quay and Manly wharves during the Vivid festival were a “nightmare” and showed why the large vessels needed to be retained.

The exhaust funnels of the two Freshwater-class ferries at Cockatoo Island.Credit: Nick Moir

“At the Manly end it is hard to get on a ferry to see Vivid, and then it’s a daunting task to get home from Circular Quay at the other end,” he said. “We need the Freshwater ferries. They are a durable design, and they will last – if looked after – for decades to come.”

Transport for NSW paused a rebuild of the Narrabeen’s engine early last year due to “major time and cost over-runs”, internal documents show.

Taylor said the four Freshwater-class ferries were designed to handle swells near the entrance to Sydney Harbour while the three second-generation Emerald-class ferries were better suited for routes on the inner harbour such as the Taronga Zoo run.

Named after beaches in Sydney’s north, the first of the double-ended ferries, the Freshwater, was launched in 1982, followed by the Queenscliff less than a year later, the Narrabeen in 1984 and the Collaroy in 1988. They can each carry more than 1000 passengers, compared with the Emerald-class vessels that have capacity for about 400 people.

Transport Minister Jo Haylen said the government would take advice over the coming months on the future of the Collaroy and “see what might be possible”.

“There are maintenance and operational challenges there including that we can’t get parts directly for the Collaroy,” she said.

Northern Beaches councillor Candy Bingham, who has campaigned to keep the large ferries, said the three new Emerald-class vessels were unsuitable for the Manly route.

“The Emeralds are supposed to hold 400 [passengers] but as soon as they get 250 on board they shut it off because they can’t meet the timetable,” she said. “The whole of the Sydney community really wants these big ferries back and operating to a regular schedule.”

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