Going, going.....?

Yes, it's a gritty blip. You'll cope. Today's blip is more to do with subject matter than aesthetics.

Love it or loathe it, the giant hammerhead crane has been a fixture of both the Sydney Harbour waterfront and the Royal Australian Navy's Garden Island base for decades. It has a recognised role in the harbour and is considered to have Commonwealth heritage values. The crane, which takes up 171 feet of the fitting-out wharf, was listed on the National Trust Register in 1996, and added to the Heritage At Risk listing in 2007.

The largest in the southern hemisphere, it was one of a small number of such cranes in the world - yes, you Scots, if this looks familiar it's because you have several surviving examples on the Clyde!

There's a story (probably apocryphal) about this one, which claims that Sydney got the giant crane because the clerk who wrote down the measurements for the desired crane on the Defence requisition form put the decimal point in the wrong spot. This story - true or not* - pleases me greatly.

Defence stopped maintaining the crane in 1996, and the question of its survival first arose in 2005. In the past three or so years, a bolt or two has fallen off (not surprising when nobody is bothering to look after it), and now its removal has been deemed necessary for reasons of safety and for more efficient operations at the naval base.

In case Sydney blippers weren't aware of it, there has recently been a public consultation process with regard to its removal. (Did you blink? Well, you missed it.) I shan't repeat the comments made by various heritage professionals that have been widely circulated through the network- the reasons given for its removal may best be paraphrased as "lame," "feeble"and "pathetic."As this is a matter of national Defence, however, the Royal Australian Navy is free to do as it wishes.

If anyone in the Sydney area gets their jollies from photographing industrial structures and has operated on the principle that they'll get around to blipping the hammerhead crane "one day", I would suggest that you get a wriggle on, just in case. Because, at the moment, its future is looking decidedly bleak.

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* The use of a decimal point makes me suspect it's not even remotely true, seeing we're talking WWII. Still, what do I know about requisitioning giant hammerhead cranes?? - anything is possible....