FERRY TO SAIL AGAIN

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1056, 21 August 1930, Page 16

FERRY TO SAIL AGAIN

“BRITANNIA” HOUSEBOAT WILL CHANGE MOORINGS ISLINGTON BAY HOTEL The ferry-steamer Britannia, a familiar sight among the coal hulks of “Rotten Row” up to less than a year ago, will make another voyage on Auckland Harbour next week. Stripped of her engines, paddles, wheel-houses and funnel, she has seen service during past months as a houseboat on the Puhoi River, and next summer, anchored in Islington Bay, will make a floating home for romantic week-end parties. From prosaic ferry to modern hotel may appear a long stride, but it has been achieved with marked success in this instance. When Mr. L. W. Daveney paid £3 for the vessel, then lying on a mudbank off Bayswater wharf, he was making a shrewd bargain, for he has received many hundreds of pounds from his modest outlay. Gunmetal in the engines went for nearly £2OO less than a week after the ferry changed ownership, and the hull, thought to have been waterlogged and beyond repair, soon flashed its copper-sheathing from beneath years of encrustation. One plank alone had been sprung and had admitted the water which flooded the vessel. WORKERS' ACCOMMODATION At that time road reconstruction in the Puhoi Valley was being pushed on rapidly, and good accommodation for the workers was scarce. Little twobunk cabins had been built on the Britannia and Mr. Daveney, mooring his command beside a stone-crushing plant beside the Puhoi River, was soon besieged by would-be boarders. He secured a Government contract for housing and catering, and an electric generator driven by a benzine motor supplied the tents of the less fortunate workers with their light. The contract will expire this week. Private cabins, a big dining-room, also used as a dance floor, electric lighting in every room, a player piano and a gramophone, a private telephone line —the vessel spells luxury indeed among the mudbanks and mangroves of the Puhoi River. Above all. there is the thought of no rates to pay, for a houseboat comes in the same category as ordinary shipping and pays no dues outside harbour limits. In spare moments Mr. Daveney buys wrecked launches and motor-cars, taking an engine and steering gear from one to power the rebuilt hull. It will be such a launch which will tow the Britannia toward Auckland next week. Before the voyage there is much to get ready. The ferry will be taken at high tide and stranded on a sandbank near the mouth of the river, there to be scraped and the bottom repainted. Meanwhile rooms are being altered to suit new conditions, and it is likely that pleasure-seekers at Islington Bay next summer will not only be able to play cards in a special room in the bow but will also dance on the flat upper deck to player-piano music floating through a skvlisrht from the big dining-room.