Echuca father-daughter duo steering steamers on the Murray

Feb 2, 2021

ECHUCA’S Alan and Zoe Bartsch are the father-daughter duo making waves on the Murray River.

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The only fully qualified female marine steam engineer on the river, Zoe has followed in the footsteps of her dad Alan, who’s been working with paddlesteamers for 50 years.

In recent months, Zoe engineered and Alan skippered the Alexander Arbuthnot, they’ve engineered together on the PS Cumberoona in Yarrawonga and teamed up again on the PS Melbourne in Mildura 18 months ago.

But it’s been a bit of adventure to get here for Zoe.

After already achieving great heights as an army cadet, she set off from home to the remote Nullarbor Plain at 17 and took up a job on a sheep station.

She rose through the ranks for two years before starting her own agricultural business, Drovers Contracting.

While in Queensland five years ago, she got a call from Alan to see if she’d like to help restore the PS Adelaide for its 150th birthday celebrations.

She caught the bug – the same passion and love for boats, the river and steam as her dad, and went out to get fully certified.

Now, at 28, she’s an engineer at the Port of Echuca Discovery Centre’s steam display – aptly named after the late shipwright Kevin Hutchinson, who her dad worked with.

“It’s a very rare trade these days, especially being a female, so you’ve got to have a love of it,” Zoe said.

“Every boiler has its own characteristics and you learn their quirks, and no matter what boat you go on it’s always different so you’re always learning.

“It was handy because Dad’s done it his whole life so I was always around the boats.”

At 14 years old, Alan left home and got a job as deckhand on the PV Coonawarra, starting a 50-year career and love of boats.

In 1981, he moved upstream to Echuca to help build the PS Emmylou and went on to become her first skipper.

He was involved in the building of many vessels, and even took part in the filming of the sequel to All the Rivers Run, as stunt double for actor Gil Tucker.

Now, he’s captain of the MV Mary Ann, and is highly respected and regarded as one of the best on the river.

“You’ve got to have the feel for it,” he said.

“It’s like anything else, there’s a bit of a knack to handle it.

“Especially in different water levels, you’ve got perfect water here now but when it’s in flood or drought, it’s a little bit different.”

Over half a century, Alan’s seen the Murray River change dramatically.

“It used to be a clear, blue river; that was ‘BC’ – before carp,” he said.

“The carp were introduced in plague proportions in the 70s, before that you could see right down to the bottom of the river. You could see the fish you were catching – people don’t realise that.

“Especially in the snow season before Dartmouth (dam) was built, they had the second flush of the snow water that would come down crystal clear.

“In the early days, we had the Pevensey Club here prior to the 90s, that was the big group of volunteers who used to look after the Port’s boats so that was quite a time.

“It’s certainly extremely different now, very commercial.”

Zoe said working with her dad was “wonderful”.

“He’s very humble, he’s actually very good at what he does and a lot of people will tell you that,” she said.

“He’s a very knowledgeable man and it’s an honour to work with him and team up.

“I think we’re the only known father-daughter team on the river.”

But the work doesn’t come without its challenges.

It’s very rare to find a woman in a role like Zoe’s on a paddlesteamer, something she says she’s had to hear about often.

“I get a lot of shtick from the boys,” she said.

“It’s been very hard; I’ve always been in male-dominated industries.

“There’s a lot of men still around who think females shouldn’t be on boats, but I love to break down barriers and prove them wrong.

“We’ve still got to fight our way through – we need strong women who won’t back down.”

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