Arrival and Operations in Sydney
Due to a delay in the arrival of her engines, the Dee Why was second to arrive, despite her being first launched. She arrived in Sydney at 2.00am on 1 November 1928, and the Curl Curl, slightly before her on 25 October in the same year. After some initial modification, both ships entered service immediately, and proved most popular with the traveling public. They were not only bigger and faster that preceding ferries – the Bingarra, Burra-Bra, Baragoola and Barrenjoey – but also better sea boats and better appointed, with reversible upholstered seating replacing the hard wooden benches of the older but otherwise similar ferries. Both ships proved easy to handle and built up good safety records over the years.
The first to have an accident was the Curl Curl, when, on 29 April 1929, she ran down a passenger launch named Nimrod, which sank because of the collision. None of the 20 people on board were hurt. The Curl Curl again caused an accident a year later on 29 April 1930, when she and another ferry, the Kiandra, collided in almost the same spot. The Curl Curl, being constructed of steel, caused grievous damage to the wooden Kiandra, and it was only by prompt action by emergency crews that she avoided sinking. Several people were injured.
On an unknown day in November 1931, the Dee Why had her first accident when she, being large and ungainly, could not stop in time before she rammed another wooden ferry, the Kirrule. The Dee Why's captain as seen to be at fault and his certificate was suspended. The Curl Curl again made the news in February 1932 when she failed to stop in time at the Manly wharf and ploughed into the footpath. On Christmas Day, 1942, the Dee Why ran aground in fog, and remained stuck for several hours while the wharfingers at Manly were wondering where she had got to – in those days there was no radio on board – and was nearly eight hours late when she was towed off after the fog had lifted and people realised what happened.
Apart from these accidents, both units of the class did nothing to get themselves into the newspapers, and no lives were lost because of either of these two ships, though several people fell overboard and drowned and many were injured by broken glass and other debris on the several occasions the Dee Why or Curl Curl were swamped by the enormous waves that whip through Sydney Heads in rough weather.
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