A ship’s airhorn that sounded for several hours from late Friday to early Saturday caused thousands of residents to lose sleep and speculate about the origin of the noise, which was heard across much of Victoria.
The sustained high F note was caused by a vessel moored at the Point Hope Maritime shipyard after an alarm tripped.
General manager Riccardo Regosa said a fault in shore power voltage caused the connection to trip and the ship’s alarm to ring.
But due to the unusual ship layout, workers took longer than usual to disarm the alarm because the breakers to stop the airhorn could not be immediately located, he said.
Workers stayed until 4 a.m. to ensure that the shore power connection was restored and that the alarm would not go off again, he said.
One police car appeared at the shipyard to investigate the cause of the alarm, he said.
A person who lived close to the shipyard said that firefighters went to the nearby Dockside Green buildings around the same time that the airhorn was sounding.
James Bay resident Ash Barnes said the droning noise started shortly before midnight on Friday and ended around 2 a.m. Saturday. “We could hear it in our townhouse, even with the windows shut.”
Some people reported hearing the noise from as far as Swan Lake, he said, adding that many people on social media were worried that it was a tsunami siren.
Barbie Zipp, who lives in the Fairfield neighbourhood close to downtown, said she had a similar conversation with her partner about the noise. “He said: ‘Is this a warning that we need to be paying attention to?’ and I was like — well, at this point it’s been two hours. I think we’re fine,” she said.
Zipp said she doesn’t mind city noise most nights. “I hear concerts, I hear stuff from Beacon Hill, this all makes us happy.” But the droning noise was just loud enough and at the right frequency to keep her from falling asleep until 3 a.m., even with the help of a meditative audiobook.
Her ears were still ringing on Saturday afternoon because of the previous night, she said.
A lot of people have been very curious and speculating about the source of the noise, Zipp said.
Regosa said the shipyard sends its apologies to anyone who may have been kept awake due to the alarm. “We’ve now made sure that it will not reoccur.”
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