Friday, May 04, 2007

Wreck of the Lady Kendall

Wreck of the Lady Kendall/Lenna Koolewong Foreshore Reserve 4th May 2007
(Click photos for big versions)

Pop along and have a look at her. She's at the boat ramps on Brisbane Water Drive between Koolewong and Tascott stations.

She's currently sitting on a barge, having been raised recently. She sunk in January 2006. She's owned by Alan Draper, the guy who runs the Starship Cruises (lunch cruises) out of Gosford. She was once the ketch Lenna of Taswegian (Tasmanian).

There's another boat of the same name, the Lady Kendall II. She's a modern ferry currently doing lunch cruises on Brisbane Water. See her here.

Wreck of the Lady Kendall/Lenna Koolewong Foreshore Reserve 4th May 2007

The prow (front AKA pointy end) with anchor chain hole.

The article on her in today's hard copy of the Express Advocate has a picture of her as a ferry. Very smart she looks, all white with red trim.

Wreck of the Lady Kendall/Lenna Koolewong Foreshore Reserve 4th May 2007

She's crusty with barnacles and full of seaweed but you can still see her red paint shining through.

Wreck of the Lady Kendall/Lenna Koolewong Foreshore Reserve 4th May 2007

Amidships. That's the middle bit of the boat. I know that from a misspent youth spent watching old war movies.

She was built in Tasmania and launched there in 1903. She was a ketch called Lenna. 21 metres long and twin-masted. She carried logs to Hobart and later worked as a fishing boat in Bass Strait (between Tassie and the mainland).

She won in her class in the Hobart Regatta in 1940, '47, '50 and '54. In 1966 she was converted to a ferry in Melbourne, re-named the Lenna Bird and worked as a tourist ferry on the Gippsland Lakes in Victoria. In 1985 she came up here.

Wreck of the Lady Kendall/Lenna Koolewong Foreshore Reserve 4th May 2007

Looking towards the stern (back end) from amidships.

Before the railway came trading ketches took farm produce from Brisbane Water to Sydney. It's 18.2 nautical miles from Barrenjoey Lighthouse to the Sydney Heads. Dunno what that is in kilometres but it can't be more than a morning's sail.

Wreck of the Lady Kendall formerly the Lenna Koolewong Reserve 4th May 2007

The stern view. You can see the propeller there on the left.

She's off back to Tassie soon. The Tasmanian Wooden Boat Museum is going to restore her to her former glory.

January article
May article, drawing & podcast on her history


Fake doctor

Some guy wearing a stethescope tried to drag a woman out of Wyong Hospital on Sunday night. He got sprung but ran off. He's 40-45, got "dark hair and a bald spot", orders the nurses around and flashed an army badge as ID. Express Advocate article.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

how sad - the wreck in your photos was once the magnificent vessel pictured on this website http://tasphotos.blogspot.com/search/label/Whaling%20and%20Shipping

Spike said...

Great link, ta Diana. Here's hoping she gets back to Tassie.

Anonymous said...

Where is she now? I have fond memories on Lenna Bird in Lakes Entrance in the summer holidays

Anonymous said...

Any update on Lenna

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Michael Szabath said...

Restoration of this incredible old lady in the photos, has been started please see link http://www.boatregister.net/Lenna.htm for update. fascinating read.

Michael Szabath said...

Restoration of this incredible old lady in the photos, was started in 2007 please see link http://www.boatregister.net/Lenna.htm for update. fascinating read. though can't find out whether it was actually finished as of 2019.