MV Freshwater's 2015 Garden Island Dry Docking in Pictures (Part 1 of 3)

Late in August 2015 Manly Ferry Freshwater was sent for its previous 5-year refit at the Garden Island drydock in Sydney. (It was most recently dry docked in February 2021.) James Goins maintained the following photographic and written public record of this major refit.

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Plenty of inspecting to be done before we start to pull things apart

Finally, a bit of sun in the dock

Kastor Dilip Tellis inspects the aft rudder before it is craned out of the dock to be pressure tested

Aft rudder out, the web of rigging remains in place for removal of the propellor blades

40,000 psi of gurney pressure means everything comes off, right back to the Freshwater's steel decks which haven't been stripped back since 2002

Freshwater's anchor windlass removed and lifted away to fitter's workshop for inspection and service

How delicate of an operation is it to remove just one propellor blade?

The first of Freshwater's aft propellor blades is finally lifted off of the hub

Freshwater's 33-year-old anchor windlass brake drums were fairly badly scaled in some sections, but have come up fairly well after just one day in the fitter's workshop

Freshwater's aft end rudder and stock have been taken out; now the tail shaft is nearly fully extracted but remains overnight to be craned out to the fitter's shop tomorrow morning. There, the remaining three blades will be closely checked!

Freshwater's starboard lower gangway is detached and lowered into the dock for overhaul

Freshwater's aft tail shaft nearly out. It will be lifted out and taken to the machineshop today

Freshwater's aft rudder post showing a bit of wear

Freshwater's aft propellor shaft is extracted and craned out of the dock for machining. A delicate lifting and balancing operation, best left to highly skilled riggers. Remaining three propellor blades will be removed in the shop....

The Freshwater's docking is all the buzz with the locals

Meanwhile, at the other end....
With one blade out and lifting eye taking its place on the hub, Freshwater's forward shaft will now be walked out by the riggers and their chainblocks

Freshwater's fore and aft rudders stand side by side in the dock. Work on them has not yet begun

Only in a major shipyard would you find a brass recycling bin like this!

Freshwater in the dock, seen from West side.

Freshwater's outline in shadow on the west wall of the dock. Lucky to be having a run of sunny days in Sydney whilst the outside areas of the vessel are being stripped and recoated

Despite everything we have learned about how to slow it or retard it, rust never sleeps. In some cases it seems a losing battle

Getting around the engine room at the moment is trickier than ever

Left vacant by the removal of the tail shaft and rudder, the delicate tubeways have both been capped for watertightness as the painters prepare to go after the ship's hull surface with heavy grit blasters to bring it back to bare metal

You won't see this very often. Fuel Oil and freshwater tanks bone dry, along with six other tanks not shown here.

Freshwater's holding yard in the massive fitter's shop area. This is only a very small part of what we've handed over for servicing.

Every seawater valve comes out.

Cherry pickers are the painters' workhorses.

Our aft tail shaft assembly weighs only 8.5 tonnes.

No wonder the cockatoos hang around. Look at the view they get!

The riggers carefully lower the Freshwater's forward rudder stock down into the dock.

The major corrosion we discovered on the Freshwater's forward rudder stock - and what to do about it - becomes a central topic of discussion in the dock. Decisions and action will need to come quickly here.

The painting prep crew have reached the top of the ship's funnel. New lettering has been ordered.

Every piece of the Freshwater which goes ashore is tagged and retagged as it is dismantled into yet even smaller pieces for servicing and/or replacement.

The four propellor blades' ability to rotate ahead and astern on their respective crank rings, and the speed and efficiency with which they do it, is now in the hands of the fitters. The epoxy coatings on the blades are stripped and they are buffed back to bronze and then re-coated. All is new, or like new.

The Freshwater's forward rudder stock was 'cleaned up' in the machine shop to allow a more thorough assessment of the extent of it's corrosion. Compare these shots to those posted yesterday and you'll see that there has been some improvement, but the word has already come down that a very complicated and time-consuming repair is required.

The Freshwater's propellor blades have all been stripped and buffed back to bare metal. After over 30 years in Sydney Harbour, all the original stamped-on documentation on each remains virtually undamaged.

A ship undergoing refit can look pretty tired and dull, and the Freshwater is no exception. On the run, the sea environment ontinually attacks and degrades all painted surfaces. In the dock, the painting team starts it's game plan by doing exactly the same thing.

Within the Freshwater's anchoring area there is a large amount of added-on steel structure which all has to be attacked and treated for rust. The painting army sends through it's fourth offensive in eight days.

Cruel to be kind. The Freshwater will continue to look more like a ghost ship before new colour starts to appear..

Now that the delicate machinery has been removed from the hull, the painters are greenlighted to unleash their fiercest weapon. The pressurised combination of water and fine garnet requires only 100 psi to rip through everything in its path and reveal original hull plating, assembled at State Dockyard in Newcastle in 1982.

The water/grit blasting of Freshwater's hull is almost an art form unto itself. These artists have to wear an extraordinary amount of protection.

The caisson which 'plugs the dock' and holds Sydney Harbour back from us is actually, um, leaking. The constant flow of gushing water makes for a nice water feature in the dock, though. The caisson itself is constructed of two foot-thick steel, is filled with water and weighs a staggering 6000 tonnes, which is more than five times our weight and on par with many Australian Navy Frigates.

Freshwater's two tail shafts are propped side by side in the fitter's workshop. Here are the actual sequential classification numbers for the forward tail shaft. The aft shaft reads exactly the same, except that the first figure reads H1725.

The forward rudder stock has found its way onto a 60-year-old German-made lathe as the site of its complicated repair job, which will involve machining down the stock to below the depth of the worst corrosion, then welding new material onto the stock to build it back up, then once again machining it back down to the right diameter and shape. All this has to be done slowly to avoid excessive heat buildup within the shaft itself during the process. Should that happen, much bigger problems will arise. It took half the day not only to mount this shaft onto the lathe but also to custom-fabricate a centreing jig for its tapered end. Plenty of machinists would love to witness this job.

Freshwater's surface prep is winding up, and today some fresh colour is already starting to appear.

Final pressure washing of Freshwater's hull before painting begins. At least five coats of surface preservation will be applied. The hot sun in the dock has created a perfect environment for a quality paint job.

Wheelhouses are both under heavy mask for spraypainting. Despite multiple organisation name and management changes, our official superstructure colour name remains "STA Fleet - Sand"