Beneath the Boat

A timber hull rests on blocks, tools and support timbers spread across the concrete beneath it. The photograph records a moment of suspension: work that stopped, a vessel that was never returned to the water, a floor that accumulated the evidence of decades of repairs and remains. Lars Halvorsen Sons Pty Ltd established the Putney boatyard in 1939, building it on a site that already carried more than a century of history. The land at 20 Waterview Street, Putney, had been the footprint of James Squire's colonial brewery, described as the first commercial brewery established in New South Wales, founded around 1798. The Halvorsen family purchased the property in 1937 and relocated operations from Neutral Bay the following year, completing the Putney complex in the early 1940s. At wartime peak the yard employed approximately 350 workers and produced military vessels for the Royal Australian Navy, the Royal Netherlands Navy, the United States Navy, and the RAAF. The five slipways on the Parramatta River could handle vessels up to 90 feet and 100 tons. The facility included engineering workshops, blacksmithing and lumber shops, machine shops, and sheet metal fabrication areas. A 1949 Daily Telegraph article described the Ryde yard as "the most modern of its kind in the British Empire." Post-war production turned back to leisure and racing craft. Between 1925 and 1976, Lars Halvorsen Sons built 1,299 craft across their Drummoyne, Neutral Bay, and Putney yards. The last of those vessels were completed in 1976. Among them was Gretel, launched at Putney on 19 February 1962, Australia's first America's Cup challenger, designed by naval architect Alan Payne for Sir Frank Packer. The Commonwealth of Australia acquired the property around 1980 and converted it to a Royal Australian Navy repair facility. Australia Defence Industries Pty Ltd took over the site in 1989. Lilac Pty Ltd acquired it around 1998 and operated it as Putney Marina. This photograph, made in 2018, finds the hull where it was left: supported, attended, waiting.