Port Huon’s Kermandie Hotel has a few strings to its bow – one of the more unusual is Radar, a 1947 Sydney ferry, which became part of the outfit in 2023.
She is used for weddings, corporate events, and tour group transfers to Bruny Island.
But for Leyland Nelson Wilkinson, she is far more than pleasure cruiser – he has known Radar since the early days, and he was recently in Port Huon, revisiting the boat that helped shape his youth. He writes:
In an old photograph, I am a boy leaning out from Radar‘s wheelhouse, one arm raised in a wave. Recently, I returned with my son to the same boat and recreated that moment. Between those two photographs lies most of a lifetime, yet stepping aboard again brought those early years remarkably close.
From about 1953 to 1962, I had the privilege of serving as a deckhand for Charles Rosman aboard his ferries, Regalia and Radar. It all began when I was a schoolboy looking for a job I could fit around my lessons.I lived near Charles Rosman’s boatshed in Mosman Bay, so I went down to ask whether he needed a hand. He took me on as a deckhand, and that simple enquiry became the beginning of a memorable chapter in my life on Sydney Harbour.
The job fitted around school, although looking back, it is surprising how much harbour life we managed to fit into a day. We would be away at 5.30am in the morning, making our first run from Balmain, collecting passengers at three North Sydney stops and taking them across to Garden Island Dockyard.
Then it was back up the Lane Cove River to Hunters Hill, followed by four wharf pick-ups on the way down to Circular Quay.
Mr Rosman would drop me at Lavender Bay, and I would race up to school in North Sydney. After lessons came two afternoon return runs, finishing back at Mosman Bay. School was one part of my education – the harbour was another. Weekends brought a different rhythm. On Saturdays we followed the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron races; Sundays were for the 18-foot sailing skiffs.
There were dinner parties and trips to harbour beaches and islands. During the warmer months, an evening outing could become a moonlight cruise that lasted well into the night. One particular delight was Boxing Day, following the Sydney to Hobart fleet down the harbour. We also followed the Squadron’s Kirribilli races and watched grand yachts such as Kurrewa IV.
On those outings we sometimes seemed to judge the time to head home by the drinks; when they began to spill, it was time to turn back. Behind all that activity was Charles Rosman’s care for his boats. Wherever possible, he maintained the fleet himself, repairing vessels and refitting their engines as required. Watching and working alongside him taught me a great deal – those lessons helped shape the working life that followed.
In 1957, I began a five-year apprenticeship in marine engineering. Suddenly, I found myself working alongside people I had known for years as passengers. Even then, I was able to keep my little deckhand’s job. I remember Radar with her varnished timber, teak deck and funnel – a familiar presence in a harbour that was such a large part of my youth.
To return all these years later, and to share that return with my son, was deeply special. The recent restoration and the work that keeps her in service are a credit to her owners. Their care has given an old deckhand the chance to step aboard again and see a boat from his childhood still making memories.
Recreating that photograph brought the story full circle: the same boat, the familiar wave, and a boyhood moment revisited after more than six decades.
I had a most memorable trip aboard Radar. This time, I came away with another photograph – and another chapter in a story that began before school, beside a boatshed in Mosman Bay.
– Leyland Nelson Wilkinson –
