I found this old photo of the Fullers ferry Koru arriving at the Birkenhead ferry terminal, and decided to scan it and compare it with a modern photo of the same place. I couldn't find a photo from the exact same location, but this one seemed close enough. It shows the Fullers ferry Harbour Cat. The original photo was taken in 1987 and I took the modern one in 2015. The Koru is now used for fishing charters and is based in Westhaven Marina,
Back in July 2014, Explore NZ announced that they would be operating a competing ferry service from Auckland to Waiheke Island. This was very welcome news to Waiheke residents and visitors alike, especially since Fullers was right in the middle of a winter full of breakdowns and other issues with their ferries.
Explore started out with two boats, D5 and Centurion. Centurion was soon replaced by the brand new D6 in December 2014 and Explore now had two large, fast ferries operating between Waiheke and Auckland. In November 2015 Explore added D7 to their fleet, a slightly smaller boat built in Australia. In April 2016, Explore announced that they would be discontinuing the service from May 8th. This came as a bit of a surprise for many people, but it was known that Auckland Transport had been making things difficult for Explore by not allowing them to use the covered Pier 2. The Explore boats have been sitting over in Westhaven for the past few weeks, and Fullers have been using D7 on the Gulf Harbour service. The old Auckland ferry Kestrel made the news recently when she suddenly sunk at her Wynyard Wharf moorings last week.
The Kestrel was the oldest ferry in Auckland, and the only remaining (floating) ferry from the old fleet of wooden double ended Auckland ferries. The Kestrel was used in the past on the Devonport and Birkenhead ferry services, and between 1985-2002 she was mostly used for Harbour Cruises and as a charter boat for tourists. Between 2002-2010 she was used as a floating restaurant in Tauranga City. In 2010 she was bought by the Kestrel Preservation Society. Unfortunately not much happened after that, until she sank on the 8th March. Now there are only two of the original wooden Auckland ferries left, the Toroa in Henderson and the Ngorio in the Coromandel. Update: The Kestrel has been refloated, but only the hull has survived. She is now alongside Orams Wharf. I finally got a chance to get some photos of the latest ferry in Auckland, the Clipper 5.
Clipper 5 was launched in November, and is pretty much identical to Clipper 4 (Launched in 2011). It can carry 100 passengers, and will be used on the Pine Harbour to Auckland ferry service, which now runs on the weekends and evenings, Sealink have also rebranded all of their Pine Harbour ferries, in a new red colour scheme similar to the Sealink car ferries. This is something I have been wanting to do for absolutely ages. I found this old photo of the Duchess (Auckland and later Wellington harbour ferry, sometimes used on the Waiheke service) online and decided to add colour in Photoshop.
I'm not super happy with it, the smoke looks a bit bad and it all looks a bit oversaturated, but other than that for a first attempt I'm quite pleased. After just over a year of providing a commuter/tourist ferry service to Waiheke Island in competition with Fullers, Explore Waiheke have added a third boat to their fleet. D7 arrived in Auckland from Brisbane last week, and has just entered service today. D7 is smaller than Explore's two other boats, and can carry 144 passengers. She will be used as a backup, and on the new extra midday services. Sealink also have a new boat, the Clipper 5, identical to the Clipper 4. I will hopefully get some photos of it soon. |
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