About 200 people, dressed in their finery, were on board on Saturday evening — the eve of the 110th anniversary of Earnslaw’s construction start date — for a "Once Upon A Time in New Orleans"-themed evening cruise and gala dinner, part of this year’s Welcome to Winter three-day event in Queenstown.
Although the vessel was due to depart at 7pm, an announcement was made shortly after that it would be unable to leave dock due to an mechanical issue.
Instead, Wayfare, its owners, put to use its Queenstown Water Taxis and the Explorer, primarily used to transport staff, to ferry passengers to Walter Peak
The last passengers arrived there about 8.20pm.
Although engineers had hoped to fix the problem in time for the return cruise, water taxis were again put to use to bring ticket-holders back to Queenstown.
Wayfare corporate communications manager Tsehai Tiffin said Earnslaw was also out of action yesterday as staff worked to repair the damage.
Ms Tiffin said that as the steamship was preparing to set sail on Saturday night, one of the tubes to the starboard boiler started leaking, something usually attributed to thermal expansion, which could happen after a lengthy shutdown period.
Earnslaw returned from its annual maintenance survey — which lasted about two months — late last week.
"She’s an old girl and she doesn’t like to be put to work too quickly," Ms Tiffin said.
The boat carried passengers on Friday evening for a fireworks cruise, and also sailed twice on Saturday afternoon.
