Sydney Ferries

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Sydney's Public Transport
Trains	Light Rail
Buses	Ferries

Two ferries- Narrabeen (rear) and Alexander (foreground)

Sydney Ferries is a state-owned corporation of the New South Wales Government providing passenger ferry services in Sydney Harbour and on the Parramatta River. Travelling by ferry is a popular and enjoyable activity for tourists and locals alike. As Sydney is based around its Harbour, ferries are an important mode of commuter transport.

1 Operations
2 Vessels
3 Organisation
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Operations

Sydney Ferries operates on nine lines of route, with approximately 14,000,000 passengers per year[1]. Sydney Ferries operates from Circular Quay Ferry Terminal, a major transport hub in Sydney's central business district, with popular routes including ferries and Jet Cats (high speed catamarans) to the beachside suburb of Manly and ferries to Taronga Zoo, a major tourist attraction. Sydney Ferries also operates three Harboursights Cruises for tourists every day.

[edit] Vessels

A large portion of the fleet at circular quay at dawn

Sydney Ferries operates seven classes of vessel, including catamarans and single hull craft, with 31 vessels in the fleet. The vessels are designed to handle a multitude of conditions from the sheltered waters of the Parramatta River to the rolling swell that comes through the heads when the weather turns bad.

The Ferries in the fleet are:

Freshwater class Manly ferries (4): Freshwater, Queenscliff, Narrabeen, Collaroy

Jetcats (3): Blue Fin, Sir David Martin, Sea Eagle

First Fleet class (9): Sirius, Supply, Alexander, Borrowdale, Charlotte, Fishburn, Golden Grove, Scarbrough, Friendship

Lady class (2): Lady Herron, Lady Northcott

Harbour cats (2): Pam Burridge, Anne Seargent

Supercats (4): Mary Mackillop, Susie O'Neill, Louise Sauvage, Supercat 4 (unnamed)

Rivercats (7): Dawn Fraser, Betty Cuthbert, Shane Gould, Marlene Matthews, Marjorie Jackson, Evonne Goolagong, Nicole Livingstone

Retired vessels include:

Lady Street, decommissioned in 2003 [2] [3]
Lady Wakehurst is now a private cruise boat
Lady Cutler, Lady McKell and Lady Woodward were also part of the fleet, but were all withdrawn from 1991 - 1993. They were sold to a Hong Kong Shipping Company. However the deal fell through. The trio languised in Rozelle Bay for 3 years until they were sold in 1998 to Melbourne and Tasmania.

[edit] Organisation

Sydney Ferries was established as a state owned corporation on 1 July 2004. Prior to this, Sydney Ferries was a business unit of the State Transit Authority of NSW.

Rear Admiral Geoffrey Smith commenced as Chief Executive Officer in August 2006. Rear Admiral Chris Oxenbould, the head of the NSW Maritime Authority, had previously acted as CEO after former CEO, Suzanne Sinclair, resigned in February 2006 following a spate of vessel incidents and service reliability issues.

The cost to taxpayers of the ferry service was singled out for particular criticism by an inquiry into the public transport network in 2003.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Australian ferries
Abel Tasman \| Australian Trader \| Empress of Australia \| MV Sorrento \| MV Queenscliff \| Spirit of Tasmania \| Sydney Ferries \| Brisbane CityCat & Cityferry List of Australian ferries