120-Year-Old Paddle-Steamer Sails Again After River Rescue

After sitting on a river bottom for nearly 40 years, a 120-year-old paddle-steamer is once again churning through Australian waters with passengers on board.

The PS Canally officially returned to service this weekend at the Living River Festival in Morgan, South Australia. Built in 1907, the historic vessel spent decades hauling produce and helping build river infrastructure before being abandoned at Boundary Bend, Victoria in the 1950s.

The boat eventually sank and disappeared beneath the Murray River's surface. It stayed there, covered in mud and forgotten, until 1998.

That's when Tony Lyons and a group of volunteers decided to attempt the impossible: raising a sunken paddle-steamer. The rescue didn't go smoothly at first.

"We got it so far up, put the pumps in and of course, we just couldn't stop the water," Lyons recalled. The team discovered four unknown portholes pouring water back into the hull as fast as they could pump it out.

After six weeks of dirty, exhausting work, they finally pulled the Canally from the river using a massive tarp borrowed from nearby grain silos. The boat made its way to Morgan, where the Mid Murray Council took ownership in 2010.

Then came the real work. Another volunteer crew, led by councillor Kevin Myers, spent the next 15 years painstakingly restoring the vessel.

"Halfway through, we were sort of running out of puff, but we could see the light at the end of the tunnel," Myers said. The restoration required 4,500 volunteer hours and $1.5 million in council funding.

The Ripple Effect

The Canally's return is breathing new life into Morgan's tourism scene. Hundreds of visitors traveled to the festival to see the recommissioned boat, and other historic paddle-steamers from towns along the river came to celebrate.

"Having the PS Canally operate out of Morgan will be a big game changer in tourism for this area," said Di Hausler, chairperson of Morgan Community Development and Tourism. The boat will now run regular passenger cruises, creating new reasons for tourists to visit and spend money in the region.

Engineer Phil Reed, who maintains the vintage steam engine, says the boat fills an important gap in South Australia's fleet of working paddle-steamers. River Murray skipper Greg Evans, who traveled from Victoria for the recommissioning, sees something even bigger happening.

"There's a great feeling of restoration happening, which is good for the future of the history of the riverboat era," he said. For Lyons, who spent those six weeks knee-deep in river mud back in 1998, seeing the boat in full working order feels like a dream realized.

Myers hopes young people will catch the paddle-steamer bug and keep these historic vessels alive for generations to come, possibly even launching careers as riverboat captains or engineers.