The young marine engineer who bought the historic PS Daisy from New South Wales to South Australia says his passion for paddlesteamers goes back to his childhood.
Luke Carpenter arrived in Mary-Anne Reserve on Sunday 23 March after buying the 129-year-old paddlesteamer in Wentworth and travelling about 700km along the River Murray to Mannum, with a few close friends and family members.
“I’ve always grown up around the paddle steamers, being on my family’s boat, a 40ft 1935 built Launch cabin cruiser type thing… since I was two weeks old at all the wooden boat festivals watching paddle boats go around. I always thought that the paddle boats were probably the right way to travel up and down the River if that makes sense,” he told ARN’s Adam and Jennie this morning.
“I didn’t think it was ever going to happen this soon but ‘giddy up’.”
When the PS Daisy recently crossed the border, it became the oldest steam-powered paddleboat in South Australia, taking the title from the PS Marion, which is 12 months younger.
Luke encourages other young people to take up an interest in paddle-steamers.
“The boats like the Marion and Mayflower and Oscar W and all those types of boats always need volunteers, and you don’t actually have to have experience on boats, we just need younger people coming into it. There’s just myself and Jackson Wickham from Renmark, he’s 25 and I’m 22 and there’s not really anyone else in that age group,” he said.
Luke will journey down the Murray River past Murray Bridge during Easter to make it to the Wooden Boat Festival in Goolwa on the 26th and 27th of April.
