Manly ferry service

The Manly ferry service (numbered F1) operates on Sydney Harbour, connecting the Sydney suburb of Manly with Circular Quay in the CBD, a journey of seven nautical miles.

In 1853, Henry Gilbert Smith chartered the wooden paddle wheeler Brothers to bring people to the Manly area and thus boost the value of the subdivision of his land holdings near the Corso. The Manly area with its beaches and bays became a popular weekend destination and more ferries were chartered including by a local hotel owner. By 1855, the paddle steamer Emu (I) provided two daily weekday trips. Emu was followed by Black Swan and Pelican.

In 1859, the first double-ended ferry, Phantom, commenced the service. She was a success, and the double-ended configuration remains the standard on the Manly route through to the present-day. Weekends and holidays were even busier than week days, and extra boats and tugs were put into service often as charters, including Goolwa, Breadalbane, Cobra, Royal Alfred, and Manly (I). A new company, the Port Jackson Steamboat Company, was formed in 1876, and within a few years it was running British-built Fairlight and Commodore to Manly. In 1881, the company was reformed into the Port Jackson & Manly Steamship Company, and the biggest paddle steamer ferry to ever operate on the harbour, the opulent Brighton, was commissioned by the company in 1883.

With fares at one shilling for a single, in 1892 the Port Jackson Steamship Company announced a fare increase. In response, some Manly residents formed their own competing company, The Manly Co-operative Steam Ferry Company, which ran chartered steamers at sixpence a single. The Port Jackson company dropped their fares to threepence which was matched by the Co-op. Neither company was profitable at this price, so in 1896 they amalgamated to form the Port Jackson Co-operative Steamship Company. Renowned naval architect, Walter Reeks, designed two new ferries for the service, that would be archetypes for all Manly ferries through to the current Freshwater class. Manly (II) (1896) was the first double-ended screw ferry on the run, and Kuring-gai (1901) was steel, double-ended screw steamer that in its appearance, size and capacity, was the first of the familiar Manly ferries of the twentieth century.

To meet the expanding demand, the company commissioned six similar double-ended screw steamers: Binngarra (1905), Burra Bra (1908), Bellubera (1910), Balgowlah (1912), Barrenjoey (1913), and Baragoola (1922). Prior to the construction of the first Spit Bridge in 1928, retired passenger ferries were used as cargo carriers. In 1928, two new ferries built in Scotland, Curl Curl and Dee Why, were commissioned. They were the largest and fastest ferries on the harbour until 1938 when the Company commissioned South Steyne, also built in Scotland.

The three Scottish-built steamers and most remaining "Binngarra-type" vessels were pulled out of service over the course of the 1960s and 1970s as the Manly service and its vessels declined. The Port Jackson and Manly Steamship Company operated the service until it was sold to Brambles Industries in April 1972 and taken over by the NSW State-government Public Transport Commission in December 1974 along with the inner harbour services run formerly run by Sydney Ferries Ltd. In July 1980, operations came under the control of the Urban Transit Authority. Baragoola and Barrenjoey (later renamed North Head), were retired in 1983 and 1985 respectively upon the introduction of the Freshwater-class ferries which remain in service. In January 1989, the service came under the control of the State Transit Authority and in 2004 Sydney Ferries.

In the mid-1960s hydrofoil services were introduced to complement the traditional ferries. They halved the travel time of the ferries but had significantly higher fares. The hydrofoils were replaced in 1990 by JetCats; however, these proved unreliable and expensive. The JetCats high speed service was discontinued on 31 December 2008 and replaced with a privately owned service operated by Manly Fast Ferry. In March 2010, the government announced that that Manly Fast Ferries contract had not been renewed. Instead another private operator, Sydney Fast Ferries, was awarded a five-year contract from 1 April 2010. However, both operators continued to operate services between Circular Quay and Manly. During 2014 Transport for NSW put out a tender for a combined service to commence during 2015 with Bass & Flinders Cruises, SeaLink Travel Group, Sydney Fast Ferries and Transit Systems responding. On 13 December 2014, it was announced that Manly Fast Ferries had won back the rights to operate the service, with a new contract which commenced on 1 April 2015.

In 2013, the Manly Ferry was given the designation F1 as part of a program to number all lines of the Sydney Ferries, Sydney Trains and light rail networks.