Less than 2 years after scuttling the Ex-HMAS Canberra dive site has been closed
A further structural assessment has confirmed the helicopter hanger on the port side of the ship has now come loose requiring a temporary closure of access to the site in the interests of public safety.
Parks Victoria website
July 4, 2011
http://www.parkweb.vic.gov.au/1park_display.cfm?park=294
HMAS Canberra was scuttled on October 4, 2009 off the Victorian coast near Geelong and is an identical sister ship to the Ex-HMAS Adelaide.
It is less than two months since the ex-HMAS Adelaide was sunk on April 13 2011 and divers have already reported the hull has cracked. The crack has appeared in the ship’s ‘weak spot’ as outlined by a marine engineer in a $4000 report the No Ship Action Group commissioned in the month before the Adelaide was sunk in a last-minute bid to prove to authorities the ship would break up quickly and pollute the bay.
Read Werner Hoyt’s report online here http://bit.ly/fLRcqY
The marine engineer predicts the Adelaide will break up faster than the Canberra as the site has less protection from large swell conditions.
Click here http://bit.ly/fwNZFi to read NSAG Media Release April 6, 2011 ‘New report says frigates are wrong ship to scuttle’
The report was the basis of a summons in the Land and Environment Court the day before the scuttling in what was a last-minute bid to stop the dumping. Read the Summons here http://bit.ly/kJi8EB
However, Premier Barry O’Farrell and Member for Terrigal Chris Hartcher chose to ignore the report, endangering swimmers and marine life for the next 250 years.
Metal sections of the ex-HMAS Adelaide have been washing up on various parts of North and South Avoca as the ship begins to break up. One piece of aluminium sheet measured two metres by 60cm and hundreds of smaller sections measuring on average about 20cm by 20cm have been found strewn along the beach.
Click here to see photos of the same aluminium sheeting littering the ocean floor around the ex-HMAS Canberra. Figures 7,8,14,15,16.
The sheet is of sandwich construction with air trapped in a honeycomb of very thin aluminium between two sheets of aluminium. The trapped air gives the sheets enough buoyancy to keep them floating
According to expert marine engineer, Werner Hoyt, “The material washing ashore are internal partitioning aluminum wall materials not removed during preparation for reefing.”
In this form with razor sharp edges it could prove deadly in the surf zone. A surfer or child struck by a thin sharp sheet this size could sustain a very serious injury.
Local surfers want answers. How many of the deadly sheets are still lurking in the surf area from Avoca Beach to North Avoca? This could be a serious hazard to marine life if ingested such as whales, dolphins, turtles and other marine creatures.
“It appears that the Adelaide is becoming the poster child of why ships should no longer be reefed,” Mr Hoyt said. “Cost of reefing is now at four times the raw cost to recycle with out counting the resource recovery. The planners failed to account for differences in construction technologies and their likely behavior when subjected to a reefing environment.”
