Star Ferry
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| Ferry services across Victoria Harbour | |
| Founded | 1888 |
| Founder | Dorabjee Naorojee Mithaiwala |
| Headquarters | Hong Kong |
| Revenue | HK$72m (2006) |
| Website | starferry.com.hk |
| Star Ferry | |||||||||||||||||
The ship Meridian Star
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| Traditional Chinese | 天星小輪 | ||||||||||||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
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| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Tiānxīng Xiǎolún |
| Hakka | |
| Romanization | Tien1sin1 Siau3lin2 |
| Yue: Cantonese | |
| IPA | [tʰíːn ɕɪ́ŋ ɕǐːu lɵ̏n] |
| Jyutping | tin1 sing1 siu2 leon4 |
The Star Ferry, or The "Star" Ferry Company, is a passenger ferry service operator and tourist attraction in Hong Kong. Its principal routes carry passengers across Victoria Harbour, between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. It was founded in 1888 as the Kowloon Ferry Company, adopting its present name in 1898.
The fleet of twelve ferries currently operates two routes (four prior to April 1, 2011) across the harbour, carrying over 70,000 passengers a day, or 26 million a year. Even though the harbour is crossed by railway and road tunnels, the Star Ferry continues to provide an inexpensive mode of harbour crossing. The company's main route runs between Central and Tsim Sha Tsui.
It has been rated first in the “Top 10 Most Exciting Ferry Rides” poll by the Society of American Travel Writers (“SATW”) in February 2009.
Before the steam ferry was first created, people would cross the harbour in sampans. In 1870, a man named Grant Smith brought a twin-screw wooden-hulled boat from England and started running it across the harbour at irregular intervals.
In July 1873, an attempt was made to run steam ferries between Hong Kong and Kowloon. This was stopped at the request of the British consul in Canton, who feared it would enable visits to gambling houses in Kowloon. It is thought that a service to the public was established in the mid-to-late 1870s, after the cession of Kowloon to the British in 1860.
The company was founded by Parsee merchant Dorabjee Naorojee Mithaiwala as the "Kowloon Ferry Company" in 1888. Naorojee bought Smith's boat, and later acquired the steam vessels Morning Star and Evening Star from a Mr Buxoo. The popularity of this means of transport enabled him to increase his fleet to four vessels within 10 years: the Morning Star, Evening Star, Rising Star and Guiding Star. Each boat had a capacity of 100 passengers, and the boats averaged 147 crossings each day. He incorporated the business into the "Star Ferry Co Ltd" in 1898, prior to his retirement to India. The company name was inspired by his love of Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "Crossing the Bar", of which the first line reads "Sunset and evening star, and one clear call for me!".
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