page_title: TSS Earnslaw
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: TSS Earnslaw / History
caption_attribution_description: English: This 1912 image shows the SS Earnslaw after launching. Archives New Zealand Reference: NZ Railways Reference Print E5838, Drawer 33, Wellington Register Room
context_page_description: The TSS Earnslaw is a 1912 Edwardian twin screw steamer based at Lake Wakatipu in New Zealand. It is one of the oldest tourist attractions in Central Otago, and the only remaining commercial passenger-carrying coal-fired steamship in the southern hemisphere.
context_section_description: At the beginning of the twentieth century, New Zealand Railways (NZR) awarded a £20,850-pound 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. The ship was named after Mount Earnslaw, a 2889-metre peak at the head of Lake Wakatipu. She was to be 51.2 metres long, the biggest boat on the lake, and the largest steamship built in New Zealand. Transporting the Earnslaw  was no easy task. When construction was finally completed, she was dismantled. All the quarter-inch 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.
  Six months later, after being rebuilt, on 24 February 1912, the TSS Earnslaw was launched and 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 Ben Lomond, transporting sheep, cattle and passengers to the surrounding high country stations.
  In 1968, the Earnslaw was very nearly scrapped but she was fortunately rescued. She was leased by Fiordland Travel (now Real Journeys) in 1969 and later purchased by the same company in 1982. She was taken out of service for a huge makeover in 1984. Her 12-metre high funnel was painted bright red, with the hull a snow-white, and her kauri timber decks glassed in.
  During her long years on the lake, the most serious accidents to occur were two groundings on the shingle shores of the lake.
  In March 1990, the Earnslaw carried Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. Other royalty to travel onboard have been the King and Queen of Belgium and the Prince of Thailand.
  The TSS Earnslaw made a brief cameo appearance in the movie Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) as an Amazon River boat.
  A plaque commemorating the ship was erected by IPENZ and the Otago Heritage Trust in 2008 and is located near the former site of McGregor & Co.'s factory, close to the Dunedin Railway Station.
caption: TSS Earnslaw, shortly after launch (1912)
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