Air lifted off Hyams beach today - August 8th 2016. |
HMAS Creswell. click to enlarge all images.. |
June 2016 The headlands and narrow entrance to the bay offered little protection as the huge north swell smashed straight into H.M.A.S Creswell. The base suffered a lot of damage to its infrastructure, least of which was two of the Navy’s training yachts Alexander and Friendship. They were behind the breakwall and secured to large floating concrete pontoons, thought to be safe. During the height of the storm large waves rolled right over the breakwall and dislodged the concrete pontoons from their moorings. The pontoons are fixed to large steel pylons driven deep into the sea bed, these have steel railway track like slides running vertically down the sides that are designed to let the 17 ton sealed concrete pontoons freely rise and fall with the tides and swell. The height of the steel pylons is around 3 meters above water level, for the waves to come over the wall with such force and lift these 17 ton pontoons clear off the top off the pylons is quite amazing. The two yachts attached to the pontoons were then ripped out of the harbour and started to drift with the wind and driving swell towards the beach. The men from DMS, quickly followed in a work boat trying to get a rope onto the yachts and haul them back to safety. With great difficulty they managed to do this with the yacht Friendship, but unfortunately, despite successfully attaching tow ropes to Alexander she was found to be still attached to the pontoons, it was decided they had no choice but to abandon the attempt in the dangerous deteriorating conditions. They were forced to stand off, and watch helplessly as Alexander and the pontoons were driven onto Hyams Beach not far from the base. Once the storm had subsided an inspection was made, and the yacht was found to be beyond recovery. |
The once beautiful yacht Alexander shown here cut into pieces ready for the lift. |
Preparing the pieces for the lift. |
August 8th. |
The helicopter on arrival. |
Getting ready for the first lift. |
Staff and onlookers. |
Bow section being lifted. |
another section of hull on it’s way to be scrapped. |
The 17 ton Pontoons. |
Two of the four pontoons buried deep in the sand. |
|
9 August 2016
Wrecked Navy Yacht.
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Great photos Rob and yes it was sad to watch. Di
ReplyDeleteThanks Di, It was so nice meeting you.
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