Proud Sydney Harbour ferry that sank after years of neglect shows how locals ‘just don’t care’ about the city’s maritime heritage, expert says
- Today would have been her 100th birthday but instead the once gracious MV Baragoola, which worked the run to the Manly beach resort, lies sunk and sliced up
- A lack of funding and expertise prevented the major repairs needed to keep it from sinking, ‘an event waiting to happen for many years’, heritage expert says
She was almost 100 years old. After a proud career in Sydney Harbour spanning six decades, it was hardly a romantic end for such a historic vessel, launched with much fanfare on Valentine’s Day in 1922.
Having survived storms, World War II and even a collision with a whale, the ferry MV Baragoola sunk at her moorings late on New Year’s Day 2022, after years of neglect. It was an undignified end, and a lesson that even the world’s most famous harbours and most popular tourist destinations can turn their back on their heritage.
Built in an Australian shipyard, the MV Baragoola gave 60 years’ service as a ferry working the Manly run from Sydney Harbour’s Circular Quay terminal to the popular beach resort of Manly in the northern suburbs of Sydney.
At peak holiday periods, more than 1,200 eager passengers lined her wooden decks to enjoy the views as the ferry ploughed across the Sydney Heads. It was an experience immortalised by poets and travel writers, a journey to a destination promoted as being “seven miles from Sydney and a thousand miles from care”.
The sight of this once gracious ship lying semi-submerged on her side at Sydney’s Coal Loader Wharf under a tide of flotsam has elicited sadness among Sydneysiders, but it wasn’t a shock.
