FERRY CONDOR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 98, 28 April 1933, Page 5

FERRY CONDOR.

SERVICE ENDED? PLANS THAT WENT ASTRAY. BUILT AS VEHICDXiAR BOAT. No unit of the Devonport Steam Ferry, Company's black-funnelled fleet has a more interesting history than the old Condor which, after 12 months of idleness, is shortly to be taken to moorings to lie up indefinitely. It is possible that the day will come when the vessel will be recouimissioned, but it seems likely that she will never again engage in the regular passenger service. Officially, the future of the ferry is undecided. To-day the Condor is tucked away in the eastern corner of the tee from which the ferries depart for Bayswater, Northcote and Birkenhead. A quantity of stone ballast has been taken out of her and her broad, upper deck is being stripped of all movable fittings. As plans for the future have yet to be definitely decided upon, her engines, in the meantime, are not being dismantled. It was originally intended that the Condor should bo Auckland's first vehicular ferry, but she was never used in that service. An iron vessel, she was built at Paisley, near Glasgow, Scotland, in 1902 and was shipped to Auckland in sections, being put together in the following year by Mr. Geo. Niccol in Freeman's Bay. Vehicular Service Wanted. For several years before the ferry company put in an order for the Condor there had been a demand for a vehicular service to link the southern and northern shores of the harbour, and the Condor was built on the understanding that the Harbour Board would provide counterpoise stages so that vehicles could be driven off the ferry in the same way as they are to-day. It is stated that before the Condor arrived at Auckland the Harbour Board notified the company that the counterpoise stages would be ready for iise long before the ferry was commissioned.

Actually, however, it was the Harbour Board and not the ferry company which was late in fulfilling its contract. The Condor was launched in Freeman's Bay, somewhere near what is now Victoria j Park, in 1903, but the counterpoise j stages which were to make the trans- I harbour vehicular service possible had | not been completed. At the time of her launching the Condor was not greatly unlike the vehicular ferries of to-day, the main exception .being that she had two funnels spaced abreast and a high bridge amidships. The Ugly Duckling. The next work carricd out on the ferry was to make her suitable for the carriage of both vehicles and passengers. For this purpose long, high cabins were huilt along either side and she was provided with a large open top deck. Access to the top deck was by way of two sets of twin ladders, open, like the top deck itself, to all weather. Oblong windows along the seaward sides of her twin cabins lent something of a house-boat effect to the ferry, but despite this she was undoubtedly the ugly duckling of the fleet. Between her narrow cabins the lower deck was left clear, so that there was a long tunnel in which it was intended the horse-drawn and early motor vehicles should be carried. Ugly as she was, the Condor was ready to inaugurate the Waitemata vehicular service, but the landing facilities were still wanting, and as the vessel was not suitable to be run solely as a passenger ferry she was tied up at the old Queen Street wharf to await the pleasure of the Harbour Board. For two years the Condor remained idle. At the end of that period the ferry company decided that it was not in its interests to wait any longer for the Harbour Board, and plans were drawn up to convert the vessel into an ordinary passenger vessel. Eventually these were approved and the Condor was remodelled to appear as she is known to Aucklanders to-day. Excursionists and Horses. Thus it was that the vessel which was. designed to inaugurate the harbour vehicular service was never allowed to claim that honour. For years she ran regular in the passenger services and many times has she been packed with excursionists. Her open upper deck made her more suitable than the other ferries for the carriage of livestock, and | in her day she carried a fortune in race- | horses to and from Brown's Island.

Humour has it that there is a definite plan afoot to give the Condor a newlease of life in an entirely new role, but details have not yet been made public. In the meantime lier future may be made the subject of speculation among the thousands, of North Shore residents who, not so many years ago. knew the ferry as the road to work and the trail for home.