Cosmetic and functional pause for the ‘Lady of the Lake’

Press, 25 May 1977, Page 21

Cosmetic and functional pause for the ‘Lady of the Lake’

MARGARET GOODE

Queenstown’s graceful “Lady of the Lake,” the S. S. Earnslaw, is ah attraction, it seems, whether in or out of the water. At present he is lying, high and dry, on the Kelvin Grove slipway, on the shores of the Frankton Arm of Lake Wakatipu, where she is undergoing her bi-annual survey. The veteran steamer has

been inspected, at a safe distance, by numerous small craft and is also providing tour operators plying the lake with an additional sight-seeing attraction.

Both the hydrofoil and the Kawarau jet tourist services have been stopping off regularly so that their passengers can view

the operation at close quarters. Manoeuvring the steamer on to the slipway took several hours, but eventually she was winched safely into the required position. The winch, it may be noted, is powered by the boiler and engine out of the paddlesteamer, Antrim,

which plied the waters of the lake at the turn of the century.

Every second year the Earnslaw is “slipped,” scrubbed and repainted — this being part of her four-yearly survey requirements. The boilers and other parts of the ship are surveyed annually.

The crew under the direction of the ship’s engineer, Alf Hawkins, are carrying out this work supervised by officers from the Marine Department.

Usually the entire operation takes up to 10 days, but on this occasion the steamer will be on the slipway for at least two weeks.

When the survey is completed the ship will return to her winter berth

— known locally as r ‘the Eamslaw’s wharf” — on the Queenstown lakefront. Here she will remain moored until she' resumes her summer sight-seeing cruises on Lake Wakatipu, usually about Labour Day week-end. Now in her sixty-fifth year, the Earnslaw is a steel-hulled vessel of 330 tons gross, with a length of 165 ft and a beam of 24ft. Her two sets of tripleexpansion steam engines, capable of developing 1000 indicated horsepower at 200 r.p.m. give her a cruising speed of 13 knots. On trials in 1912 she reached 16| knots. The ship is run by the Fiordland Travel Company on lease from the Railways Department.