Taking a ride on Manly Cove was historically a fun activity
From the late 1920s into the 1960s, visitors to Manly Cove could take a joy ride in a sleek, fast speedboat for a modest fee. Various competing entrepreneurs were involved.
Once it had built the large harbour pool, the Port Jackson and Manly Steam Ship Company called for tenders to use a wharf/pontoon connected to the promenade. The Joyce Brothers, who had a boatshed at Neutral Bay and owned a speedboat called the Kookaburra, were successful but other operators continued from other locations around the Cove. Well- known boats included Let’s Go, Let’s Go Too, Kalowa and Kingfisher.
The boats themselves – either imported Chris Craft from the USA or built locally – were almost works of art. Typically the hulls were double layered cedar planking with a single layer top deck, all varnished and polished to the standard of fine furniture. They were powered by 150 HP engines, had a top speed of about 55kph and could carry 10 people.
It was not all fun and games. In late December 1948, Let’s Go Two exploded while towing the loading pontoon from its base at Treharne’s boatshed in North Harbour to Manly Cove to commence the day’s rides. Fortunately, the driver Gordon Dunn escaped with a singeing.
On the other side of the ledger, in November 1949, a Manly speedboat raced to the rescue of four men whose small launch had been run down near The Heads by an incoming tanker, the North Star. Rescuing of sailors in distress was a regular activity.
As the harbour became more crowded and more people had access to cars and boats, the novelty and practicality of the joy rides diminished and they finished in the early 1960s. The Kookaburra (two) is now in the Sydney Heritage Fleet.
Richard Michell is the vice-president of the Manly, Warringah and Pittwater Historical Society and the secretary of Friends of Dee Why Lagoon. Visit mwphs.org.au and fodyl.au
