Dee Why Ferry - Demise

Demise

Just before the Second World War, the P.J. & M.S.Co. found that using coal tar as fuel was much cheaper than bunker oil. The P.J. & M.S.Co. obtained its coal tar from the North Shore Gas Company, which had nothing else to do with it. At the time it cost twopence a gallon, and the three big steamers of the fleet – Dee Why, Curl Curl and SS South Steyne – were all converted to burn coal tar instead of oil. However, soon other users found that coal tar was useful, and to remain competitive, the North Shore gas Company upped its prices to an unmanageable rate, and so the three steamers were reconverted to oil. It was the price of oil that led to their demise.

By the mid 1950s, these two ships were beginning to age. Though still in front line use, the advantages of diesel propulsion over steam had become apparent when another Manly ferry - Bellubera - was converted to diesel propulsion in the late 1930s. When boiler oil fuel was available cheaply, diesel propulsion possessed no real advantage, cost-wise, but after World War Two, with falling patronage, the P.J. & M.S.Co. had to cut costs somehow. They did so by using the steamers left in the fleet less and less, and for the first time, in 1952, diesel vessels did more runs than steamers. The idea of converting Dee Why and Curl Curl to diesel was shelved quickly when it was realised the costs would be prohibitive, but throughout the 1950s, these two old steamers, along with the SS South Steyne, were still used, albeit less and less.

In 1960, almost in debt and with nothing left to do but axe steam propulsion, the P.J. & M.S.Co. decided to decommission the Curl Curl, which occurred on 25 October 1960. She was moored at the Balmain depot, awaiting a decision on her fate. The problem of her next use solved itself when, in 1962 she began popping rivets and leaking, and so she was sold to Strides & Co, shipbreakers. They towed the stripped hulk out of the harbour, where she was scuttled.

The Dee Why continued to forlornly plod the harbour alone until 1968, when she too was decommissioned and sold to Strides, who stripped her and left her bare hull lying around for a few years. She was finally towed out of the harbour on 25 August 1976, by the tugs Rozelle and Fern Bay, to a point two-and-a-half nautical miles offshore. There she was scuttled, her remains in in water 51 metres deep at 33°41′S 151°20′E / 33.683°S 151.333°E / -33.683; 151.333, and forming an artificial fishing reef. Divers regularly dive the wreck.