Sunday, 9 April 2017
The wreck of the Seafarer off Moullie Point Cape Town South Africa
A new picture, to myself at least!
My continued interest in this wrecking that happened in 1966 was that it was two years before I arrived in Cape Town and that my good friend Notty had all his household belongings on this ship, he was not insured and lost the lot!
The fact that the Rootes Car Company, Scotland had also shipped an order of Hillman Imps to Stanley Motors, the then Rootes agents for South Africa was not lost on me either. There were no more Imp imports excepting private ones after this event.
Roy
Taken off a Facebook page and posted by Heather McQueen Shand (many thanks)
The year 1960 on the top of this card is incorrect, the accident happened July 1st 1966 (roy)
In this photo of the Seafarer you can still see the remnants of the word "welcome" on the side of Signal Hill, just above the treeline. Who remembers that? I was told that when the Royal family visited in 1947 hundreds of school children dressed in white stood there to mark out the word WELCOME. Presumably trees (or shrubs?) were planted there afterwards. There is no sign of it today.
Read all about the incident in this link. http://www.historicalmedia.co.za/?p=848
And news just come in today, Sunday 26th January 2014.
I was on the seafront wall with my father an hour after the Seafarer grounded. She had not yet fractured but the air was thick with the smell of leaking heavy fuel oil. (She was an oil-fired steam turbine ship). My ship was in port at the time and I was spending the night at our Camps Bay home. Our ship’s scheduled departure late that morning was specifically deferred by a few hours to enable the crew to have a gander at the wreck. By daybreak the ship had already broken ahead of the superstructure. A good friend of mine was a Cadet officer on Seafarer at the time and related how within hours of the stranding his cabin on the port side had been smashed open by the pounding seas.
Rob
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