On the Catwalk

The rail tracks run from somewhere near the back of the shed all the way to the river. They are set into the timber floor of the main boatshed at Halvorsens Boat Yard in Putney, and their purpose is straightforward: move the hull to the water. Everything in the shed was built around that logic. The steel columns, the timber roof trusses above the slipway bay open to sky, the long clear span of the floor. The building was designed for launching, not for looking at. Lars Halvorsen Sons Pty Ltd constructed the Putney complex from 1939, completing the boatshed, concrete slipways, timber wharf, and associated buildings in the early 1940s. The yard operated five slipways on the Parramatta River, capable of handling vessels up to 90 feet and 100 tons. At its wartime peak the workforce reached approximately 350 people, producing Fairmile motor launches, fast supply vessels, and air-sea rescue boats for the Royal Australian Navy, the United States Navy, the Royal Netherlands Navy, and the RAAF. The combined value of wartime contracts exceeded £1,000,000. After the war the yard returned to leisure craft and racing yacht construction. The 1949 Daily Telegraph described it as the most modern facility of its kind in the British Empire. In 1962 the yard launched Gretel, designed by naval architect Alan Payne and commissioned by Sir Frank Packer, Australia's first America's Cup challenger. Between 1925 and 1976, across the Drummoyne, Neutral Bay, and Putney yards, Lars Halvorsen Sons built 1,299 craft. The boatyard closed around 1980. The Commonwealth of Australia subsequently converted the site to a Royal Australian Navy repair facility. By 2018, when this photograph was made, the shed stood empty. The columns held the roof up. The tracks went nowhere. The slipway bay was open to the sky above a floor that hadn't carried a hull in decades.