Chinaman's Hat (Port Phillip)

Chinaman's Hat is an octagonal structure serving as a shipping channel marker and haul-out for local brown fur seals, in the South Channel of Port Phillip in the Australian state of Victoria. It is in the Mornington Peninsula Shire, 3 km (1.9 mi) east-south-east of Pope's Eye. Along with the latter it served as a navigation beacon at the Heads of the bay.

New version of Chinaman's Hat

History

The term Chinaman's Hat is the local name once associated with the site of a former military structure, Station M, but now transferred to a new seal platform erected by Victoria's Park Authority in 2002.

The postwar structure was built to replace a dilapidated military installation erected on a dolphin as part of the Port Phillip bay defence system shortly before 1942. This earlier structure is often said to have supported an optical mount, or 'magic eye which transmitted two piezo electronic beams across the Rip to a large mirror, and then to two reflectors, respectively Station P, and Station S, at the heads of Point Lonsdale. Any break in transmission in such a system was designed to set off an alarm to signal the possible presence of enemy vessels. The mechanism apparently did not function as expected, and the equipment was removed two years later, in 1944.[1] Some doubts, however, have been expressed regarding the existence of this interception system: the site certainly was equipped in wartime with underwater indicator loops to detect submarines.[2][3][4] After it was abandoned, the dilapidated remains were used as a perch for both recreational fishing and as an anchorage. It rested on a circular concrete caisson base, roughly 7 m (23 ft) in diameter, raised on a sandy shoal some 6 m (20 ft) below the waterline.[5]

Parks Victoria was granted a permit in early 2002 to demolish the old structure after arguing that it posed a risk for small craft navigation and was devoid of heritage value.[6] In the face of public protests, the Authority went ahead and built, at a cost of A$210,000, an expensive alternative platform which was quickly disparaged by critics at the time as a veritable "Taj Mahal for seals".[7] This new structure for the seal colony was grounded on a rectangular base and lies not far from the Mud Islands bird sanctuary.[8] However, the seals refused to budge from their traditional, run-down landmark, and it was only after the authorities proceeded to demolish the old haul-out that they settled on the new platform. It is this new structure which now carries the name Chinaman's Hat.[9]

The present structure is one of four haul outs or resting sites[10] in the bay, and is occupied by a bachelor community of the Australian fur seals. It is a popular destination for scuba divers and snorkelers.[11] Visitors to the site are warned to keep their distance, since the seals can at times behave aggressively towards people who approach too close.[12]

Notes
  1. Brad Duncan, 'Expanded Defence History of Port Phillip Bay' in The Maritime archeology and maritime cultural landscape of Queenscliffe: a nineteenth century Australian coastal community, Phd thesis, James Cook University, 2006, Appendix C-2, p.11.
  2. Australasian Institute for Maritime Archeology Newsletter, Vol 21, No.2, June 2002 p.4.
  3. Port of Melbourne Port of Melbourne. com Archived 12 September 2012 at Archive.today.
  4. 'Jetties and Piers: Archived 4 April 2012 at the Wayback Machine A background history of maritime infrastructure in Victoria', Victorian Government online publication. p.42
  5. "Chinaman's Hat". Victorian Heritage Database. vic.gov.au. 26 February 2014. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  6. Australasian Institute for Maritime Archeology Newsletter, Vol 21, No.2, June 2002 p.4
  7. 'Seals reject new resting place in Australia,' Archived 18 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine Seal Conservation Society, 5 March 2002.
  8. Andrea Petrie, Baywatch reveals city's life aquatic. in The Age, 9 January 2008.
  9. Melissa Fyfe, 'The lords of the bay,' in The Age, 20 March 2004
  10. Melissa Fyfe, 'The lords of the bay,' in The Age, 20 March 2004
  11. Richard Everist, Geelong and the Bellarine Peninsula: The Spirit of Place, BestShot, 2009 p.61
  12. Megan Levy, 'Fur seals bite tourists,' in The Age, 30 November 2010.

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