As the Watsons Bay and Vaucluse areas grew, Edye Manning provided a ferry to local hotel and picnic grounds.

The latter was delivered with high bows and raised wheelhouses having been intended for a short-lived Manly to Watsons Bay service.

The Watsons Bay and South Shore Ferry Company commissioned the naval architect Walter Reeks to design a new vessel, Vaucluse, his first double-ended screw steamer.

This pushed her to bursts of 15 knots, which made her one of the fastest ferries on the harbour and ideal for the long run from Circular Quay to Watsons Bay.

On a 5:35 pm service from Circular Quay on 4 October 1916 with 100 passengers aboard, Vaucluse collided with the Royal Australian Navy steam yacht, Franklin.

With the Watsons Bay run declining for much of the 1920s due to competition from trams and private cars, Woollahra and Vaucluse were sold in 1931, the latter to the Employees' Welfare Committee of the Walsh Island Dockyard & Engineering Works in Newcastle, where she carried workers from Newcastle to the dockyard[1] prior to its closure in 1933.