sail-world.com -- Western wedding cake collapses

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Western wedding cake collapses
1:03 AM Wed 13 Dec 2006 GMT

'Wedding Cake West jas been part of Australian yachting for more than 80 years'    Andrea Francolini ©

The Wedding Cakes, white wooden lighthouses have marked the channels in Sydney Harbour are no longer at matched set.

The green and red lights of the two white, tiered channel lighthouses have guided vessels through the harbour since 1924.


Wedding Cale West is no more -  Franck Gicquiaud  

066196 / SYHB (WMO 95766) - better known as Wedding Cake West, with its Red light, off Georges Head near Mosman, marking the western channel of the Sow and Pigs reef collapsed into the harbour yesterday afternoon.

The lighthouse had a red light, a concrete tower, copper top and white painted wooden paling skirt.

It was the younger of the twin buoys, built in 1924, while the green-lit Eastern Channel Lighthouse was built in 1908. Both buoys were scheduled to be replaced in 2007.

A stainless steel anerometer hads been installed in 1996 and a temperature sensor was added in 1997

During the CYCA Big Boat race down the harbour yesterday, the structure was noticeably heeling over.

The last reading from the Western Wedding Cake was a at 12/04:30pm 17.6 SSW 11 18.

Travellers on the 4.35pm JetCat from Manly were delayed as the vessel slowed down to avoid debris in the water.

Sydney Ports had cordoned off the area late yesterday and, along with the NSW Maritime Authority, were demolishing what was left of the lighthouse.

The only indication left of the historic lighthouse are four temporary white lit buoys.


by Rob Kothe



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