Source: Bayside Leader, 6 May 2002

Cerberus Study

By KATE WILLIAMS

Thirty years since the first attempt to salvage the rotting hulk of HMVS Cerberus was made, Bayside Council has moved to preserve the vessel. Councillors voted at a general committee meeting last week to contribute $12,500 towards a study of the ship, which serves as a breakwater at Half Moon Bay in Black Rock. The study will also examine the seabed beneath the ship.
The decision was made after a Heritage Victoria report recommended further testing was needed to determine the exact cost of preserving the armoured turret ship. The report stated that the cost of building a structure to prop up the decks, turrets and cannon could be more than $2.4 million. Heritage Victoria will contribute $12,500 and Parks Victoria $25,000 towards the technical study.
The Cerberus has been the subject of a ongoing heritage battle since the 1970s. Named after the three-headed dog in Greek mythology that guarded the entrance to the "lower-world", the Cerberus was the flagship of the Victorian Navy from 1896 to 1901. It became part of the Royal Australian Navy in 1911. The ship was bought in 1926 by the former Sandringham Council. It was scuttled in Half Moon Bay to make a breakwater.
During spirited debate at last week's committee meeting, Cr Graeme Disney said the vessel, which was slowly crumbling and sinking into the seabed, had to be preserved. He said while $12,500 seemed like a lot, it was no comparison to the amount of money the council would have to spend on clean-up costs. He said the council would have to foot the clean up bill if the ship disintegrated. Cr Disney said no government would fund work to preserve the vessel until the technical study was completed. Cr Nick Eden agreed, saying the wreck was a safety hazard. But Cr Alex del Porto said he could not support funding the study, as he did not believe government money would be forthcoming. He said the council had repeatedly asked for government funding, but to no avail. Courtesy of HMVS Cerberus News: After seventeen years of searching for a solution to prevent the collapse of HMVS Cerberus at Black Rock, a meeting was convened in April 2017 to which two of the key stakeholders, Friends of the Cerberus and the National Trust, were not invited. Both uninvited groups had co-nominated Cerberus for inclusion on the National Heritage List while Friends had obtained the $500,000 NHII grant that the National Trust was the custodian of. From then on three levels of government conspired to implement an unsound heritage solution without consulting the two community groups. According to the then Mayor of Bayside, the Federal Heritage Department and Heritage Victoria representatives indicated that filling Cerberus with concrete was the way forward and proposed using the NHII grant for this purpose. Friends was informed of the decision of this secret April meeting in late May while the National Trust only found out on the day of the Bayside Council meeting that decided to commence the concrete planning process. A superior solution of injecting structural polyurethane under the gun turrets was conveyed to Bayside but was not forwarded to the archaeologist writing the application for a permit from Heritage Victoria to fill Cerberus with concrete. Bayside's permit application contained inaccurate claims about the polyurethane solution, misquoted from the Burra Charter (the gold standard of heritage conservation) and omitted relevant information about the shortcomings of the concrete approach. To their credit Heritage Victoria did allow objections to the permit application but then appeared to take no notice of them. Their reasons for rejecting polyurethane suggest that the submissions were not even read. Polyurethane is cheaper than concrete, adds no weight to the ship, will support the turrets and allow the guns to be returned to the ship, is environmentally safe, has been used in marine environments since the 1960s and is reversible. Concrete on the other hand will more than double the weight of the ship causing it to settle, will not support the turrets or allow the guns to be returned and is not reversible. To top it off, the concrete fill approach has been used in the past and deemed a bad conservation practise. A vessel of the same age as Cerberus was filled with concrete in 1934 only to have the concrete removed at great cost in 2000. Because of the location and quantity, removal will not be an option for Cerberus. Future generations will laugh at us and condemn us for implementing such an unsound supposed solution. Reproduced courtesy of the Age newspaper

Source THe Age 31/7/2018

Cerberus Study

By Clay Lucas

Launched in 1869 as the Victorian navy's flagship, the sunken vessel the HMVS Cerberus has become the battleground for a fight over how Melbourne deals with its heritage. On one side are heritage and community groups saying the state's history is being sacrificed so a local council can reduce its legal liabilities. On the other are the state's heritage authority and Bayside Council. Last month, after a long-running debate, Heritage Victoria issued a permit for the council to pump thousands of tonnes of concrete into the hull of the historic wreck off Black Rock. Pouring 4000 tonnes of concrete into hull 'will ruin Cerberus wreck' Cr Evans said more was needed to preserve the wreck, which remains intact and above the waterline. Critics of the move though argue that pumping what amounts to 4000 tonnes of concrete into the hull will accelerate the ship's corrosion, and sink it further into the sand – making it less visible from the shore. “Bayside Council is just worried about being sued,” said John Rogers, president of community group Friends of the Cerberus. A snorkeler died at the boat while diving in 2010, and Mr Rogers said the council wanted to avoid this ever happening again. In the process they would destroy important state heritage, he said. “No-one will get in it if it’s concreted up, but it’s a bloody expensive way to solve your legal liabilities,” he said.