Electric ferry then is it Greg?

Before the inevitable comments - the engines are by Yanmar, a century-old
and very experienced Japanese diesel engine manufacturer, as many satisfied
boaties will confirm. Faults can occur on any product, but only if they're
not manufactured in Australia do they provoke knee-jerk responses by NSW
Labor politicians.

Second, a general observation. The much-vaunted Australian-built
Freshwaters were plagued by control system issues, resulting in failures,
groundings and collisions, for some *twenty* years before they were finally
resolved. Just saying, because we're getting plenty of this "it wouldn't
happen if they were built in Australia" at the moment. No matter where
something complex is built, there's a likelihood of faults. A post from
somebody on ATDB about a month ago:

" There were a lot of control system issues that occurred for decades on
the Freshwaters. *Collaroy *in particular is the problem child as it has a
totally different control system design, which is the main reason it's
being retired and *Queenscliff *was refit, because at least the latter is
mostly identical to *Freshwater*. But they all had various issues with the
integrated control systems.

A couple of crashes happened in 2005 ( https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/tp/fi
... -final.pdf
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/tp/files/35617/IR-Collaroy%20March%202005-final.pdf
, https://www.otsi.nsw.gov.au/sites/defau ... -final.pdf
https://www.otsi.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/otsi_assets/documents/reports/IR-Narrabeen-final.pdf
) , which is perhaps what Collins was referring to in terms the 20-year
timeframe from the mid-80's. I think Sydney Ferries and its suppliers at
that time didn't have a full appreciation for the numerous failure modes
the electronics could present, as well as the poor reliability of these
compared to other marine components. Better training and procedures were
needed as well, as indicated by the *Narrabeen *crash, which actually
injured people (I don't think the Emeralds have caused any passenger
injury?)

I think the *Freshwater*-class are safe enough now, but as Collins said, it
took way too long to sort this out. They were hardly perfect as a certain
modern narrative seems to make out"

This is without even mentioning the Australian-made Millenium trains or 86
class locos for example.

Those new NGR trains to be built in Queensland will be costing some 100%
more than if they were built overseas. They'd better be absolutely
flawless, otherwise, no doubt, the SMH will be reporting every little
hiccup for us [not].

Tony P

On Tuesday, 7 February 2023 at 15:27:45 UTC+11gregsut...@...
wrote:

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> https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/new-manly-ferry-suffers-catastrophic-engine-failure-on-sydney-harbour-20230207-p5cikt.html

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