Hong Kong Stories - Centennial Stories (English Version) Series 51：Travel across the Sea

The “Star Ferry” was founded in 1880 by a foreign businessman to provide the ferry service plying between either side of Victoria Harbour between Tsim Sha Tsui and Central. Most of the passengers then were businessmen and government officials. The general public would take the ferry across the harbour only under really emergent situations. Until 1923 when business activities grew frequent, a group of local Chinese merchants founded a new ferry company providing ferry services. Since its first service was from Yau Ma Tei, the ferry company was named “The Hongkong and Yaumati Ferry Company Limited” (HYF). Before the war, major trading and wholesale companies of Hong Kong were located on Hong Kong Island, especially around Sheung Wan, but since many Chinese still lived in Kowloon, a lot of buyers for businesses took the HYF ferry across the harbour for procuring goods.

Before power tools become popular, there were a number of manually operated tools among ferry equipment. One of them was a “blast”, namely a siren, also known as an “air horn”. Inside an air horn is a very thin copper piece that vibrates to produce sound when an air current, created by stirring, flows past it. In the past whenever Victoria Harbour was blanketed in fog, sailors on ferries sailing across the harbour would take an air horn to the front of the ship and stir it hard to give blasts. This would alert the ships nearby of their position to avoid accidents from happening.

After a hectic day, exhausted passengers should well space out and enjoy the 10-odd minutes of their ferry trip leisurely. Yet, there is a professional photographer who cannot help but capture the fast-changing cityscape when taking the ferry across Victoria Harbour if he / she has a camera with him / her. Whether it be a sunset, a nostalgic pier design, or people on the ferry, he / she keeps clicking the shutter. Compared to spacing out, this is another form of enjoyment.

A classic ferry food, a bowl of instant noodles with luncheon meat and egg, turns out to provide the motivation to enhance the ferry service quality.

When Hong Kong’s economy took off in the 1970s, people had heavy demand for vehicular ferry services. Nonetheless, in light of the commissioning of the harbour crossings and the West Kowloon Reclamation for new airport projects, the Jordon Road Ferry Pier service was cancelled and vehicular ferry services declined. Today, the ferries have turned into “dangerous goods vehicular ferries”, providing 24-hour vehicular services for dangerous goods vehicles between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon.