All aboard: Peter Payne and grandsons Paul, left, and David aboard the 14-tonne ferry MV Bennelong after it was launched into the waters of Western Port at Yaringa boat harbour.
Another ferry nice restoration by retired riverboat skipper By Mike Hast FORMER Murray River paddleboat skipper Peter Payne’s moment of truth had arrived. His restored former Sydney Harbour ferry was on the slipway at Yaringa Marina in Somerville, just minutes away from being launched. Would it all go according to plan? MV Bennelong represented four years and three months of almost fulltime work for the 80-year-old as well as help from a cast of dozens including his mates Johnny Buckle and Dick Payne, his brother. The Somerville boatie was calm on the outside – and on the inside: “This is the third boat I’ve restored at Yaringa in the last few years. Every detail has been taken care of so the launch should go off without a hitch,” he said as a small crowd of friends, family and supporters gathered on a grassy bank overlooking the slipway. Minutes later Bennelong was in the water, floating serenely on a flooding tide, and Peter and his fan club strolled along the dock to clamber aboard and celebrate with a beverage or two. Captain Payne, a Parkdale boy, has spent a lifetime on water, salt and fresh. He was an apprentice boatbuilder at age 15, working with the legendary Jim Sugrue at Beaumaris, in those days a hive of boat-building and fishing. Peter built his first boat at age 14, a VJ12 racing skiff, the smaller version of Sydney Harbour’s famous, speedy 18ft skiffs. He was a founding member of Parkdale Yacht Club and to fund his sailing exploits, he bought, fixed and sold Sharpies, then a popular class of racing yacht based on 19th century fishing boats and raced at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. At age 21 he started out on his own, restoring a 35-foot (10.5-metre) cruis-
Slipping in: Yaringa Marina staff guide MV Bennelong into the waters of Western Port on Friday last week.
er, then worked for boatbuilders on the Mordialloc Creek island and in Cheltenham, building and repairing boats of all types and sizes. In the 1960s, Peter redesigned and built the first two fibreglass Boomerangs, paving the way for the Boomerang 20, which made a big impact on the trailer sailer market. The lure of working for himself again took Peter and his wife Dawn to Port MacDonnell in SA where he built three timber fishing trawlers a year and operated the port’s slipway, but the need to educated their three children brought them back to Melbourne. Peter and Dawn moved again in
1973, this time setting sail for Mildura where he bought and restored Wanera, a 300-tonne paddle steamer licensed to carry 40 passengers. On Wanera he ran the first overnight cruises out of Mildura. Later there were five-day trips up the Darling River. He skippered the famous paddle steamers Emmylou, Melbourne and Rothbury after being enticed out of semi-retirement running a boat hire business in Merimbula. “I lived for that river,” he said. Peter retired properly 10 years ago, but you can’t keep a good boatie down – he found a 44-foot (13.5-me-
tre) yacht, Scheherazade, named after the legendary Persian queen, which had toured the world for a decade and stood languishing at Yaringa. He restored it and then restored a trimaran, Kakula. Bennelong is his third restoration at the marina. “They reckon I’ve got one more in me,” he said. The former Sydney ferry was built in 1952 by the NSW government and, after being pensioned off, carried partygoers on the Yarra River for several years. It is 48 feet (14.5 metres) long, weighs 14 tonnes and draws just one metre. When Peter bought it at a sheriff’s
auction for $500, it had been out of the water for 12 years and on a cradle in the Yaringa Marina hardstand area for seven. “It’s made of Queensland kauri and was too good to burn,” he said. Bennelong – named after the Sydney Aboriginal man who was taken to England by Captain Arthur Phillip to meet King George III in 1793 – had no wheelhouse and the superstructure had rotted. Peter admits he is a bit of a scrounger when restoring his boats. “I’m a pensioner and half of the rebuild was done with secondhand material. Yaringa’s a friendly place and it was easy talking people into helping me. And I’d like to thank all those people,” he says with a smile. Yaringa harbour owner Stefan Borzecki also sports a smile, a wry one, while standing beside the octogenarian as Peter tells the story of auction day. “There were about 15 people,” Peter said. “The auctioneer asked for an opening bid of $100 and no one spoke, not a movement in the crowd. Then my dopey mate yells out ‘$400’ and I could’ve kicked him. I quickly bid $500 and got it.” Stefan: “That ... boat owned me more than $2000 in fees. Peter might have to take me out in it a few times.” Mr Borzecki will have to be quick: Peter is taking the boat to Paynesville after two weeks of sea trials including testing the Perkins diesel that pushes Bennelong along at 7-8 knots. “We were thinking of taking her up to the Murray, but we’ve got a pen at the Paynesville marina,” Peter said. Fishing? “Nope; Dawn fishes. I’ll be lying on a deckchair in the sun.” Additional material from the Yaringa magazine, 2002. Mornington News 14 July 2011
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