«Эрнслоу»: Столетняя пароходная легенда озера Вакатипу

TSS Earnslaw is a 1912 Edwardian twin screw steamer based at Lake Wakatipu in New Zealand. She is one of the oldest tourist attractions in Central Otago, and the only remaining commercial passenger carrying coal fired steamship in the southern hemisphere.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, New Zealand Railways (NZR) awarded a £20,850 contract to John McGregor and Company shipbuilders of Dunedin to build a steamship for Lake Wakatipu at their Otago foundry and engineering works. The Earnslaw was designed by naval architect Hugh McRae and was based on a Siemens Martin steel hull design and using Kauri for the decking. Propulsion was provided by twin coal fired triple expansion, jet condensing, vertically inclined engines. The keel was laid on 4 July 1911. Transporting the Earnslaw was no easy task. When construction was finally completed, she was dismantled. All the steel hull plates were numbered for reconstruction much like a jig saw puzzle. Then the parts were loaded on to a goods train and transported across the South Island from Dunedin to Kingston at the southern end of Lake Wakatipu. After the hull was re assembled, Earnslaw was launched on 24 February 1912. On 3 August, after the construction of the ship was fully completed, trials were commenced. On 18 August 1912, the Earnslaw was fired up for her maiden voyage to Queenstown, with Minister of Marine John A. Millar as captain. She then became a valuable vessel for NZR and was known as the "Lady of the Lake". The Earnslaw worked with her sister ships, the paddle steamers Antrim and Mountaineer and the screw steamer , transporting sheep, cattle and passengers to the surrounding high country stations. In 1968, the Earnslaw was very nearly scrapped. She was leased by Fiordland Travel (subsequently Real Journeys, and then RealNZ) in 1969, and later purchased by the same company in 1982. She was taken out of service for a major refit in 1984. Her high funnel was painted bright red, with the hull a snow white, and her kauri timber decks glassed in. In 1984, the composer Ron Goodwin created a New Zealand Suite of six pieces recording his impressions of places he had visited. One of these is the "Earnslaw Steam Theme" based on the rhythm of the ship's engines, which he wrote after a trip to Lake Wakatipu. In March 1990, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip travelled on the Earnslaw. Other royalty who have been on board include the Prince of Thailand and the King and Queen of Belgium. In June 2021, a report into greenhouse gas emissions in Otago calculated that in the 12 month period July 2018 to June 2019, Earnslaw emitted 4,076 tonnes of 'carbon dioxide equivalent'. This represented 1 percent of all transport related greenhouse gas emissions in the Queenstown Lakes District. In October 2021, RealNZ announced that it was investigating carbon neutral or carbon zero means of powering the vessel. At a celebration in 2022 of Earnslaw completing 110 years of service on the lake, RealNZ said that it was exploring biofuel, wood pellets and hydrogen as alternative sources of boiler fuel, but that a decision was a few years away.

The Earnslaw celebrated her centenary in October 2012 and continues in routine operation carrying tourist passengers across Lake Wakatipu from Queenstown to Walter Peak High Country Farm, a tourism operation with farm tours, horse treks, heritage tours, barbecue lunches and evening dining at the historic Colonel's Homestead. The ship works fourteen hour days in the summer months and cruises for eleven months of the year, despite being over 100 years old. Visitors to the region can undertake a 1.5 hour cruise on board Earnslaw and view the workings of the steam engine and stokers. Each year, Earnslaw undergoes an annual survey – typically from late May to early June – with every second year being taken out of the lake. Passengers have access to a walkway in the engine room, where they can observe the operation of the engines during the cruise.