Woles: Cape

Showing posts with label Cape. Show all posts

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.

She was a good, well-found ship and was carrying a record import cargo, both in terms of deadweight and value. Terrible waste.

Rob

Thursday, 30 March 2017

Cape Town a view from Blouberg

Seen here and looking across Table Bay is the Table Mountain with the city below it.

Nice beach and very popular for wind surfers.

Saturday, 18 March 2017

Cape Towns V A Waterfront in 1997

The date will be close, the fact that the boat nearest the camera still flys the old South African flag tells me that this was pre elections.

Brian was a good friend of mine and I only discovered he has passed on last week.

This is an early TBA meeting, it will be around 1997?

Note the old SA flag on Kalarhari Sand (ferro build) Don who is standing next to Brian built the boat himself.

It was holed off Dassen Isle one night and is still there.

Brian is in the yellow tee shirt,

My Endurance 37 Ocean Cloud is behind them and against the wall.

His company is still running, Good Hope Stevedoring, in Auckland St, Paarden Eiland,

http://www.blogspot.co.za/2012/05/tba-meeting-at-v-waterfront.html

Rob, a friend of mine, viewed the picture and made the following observations.

The V&A shopping centre (or “Disney World” as my Dad unflatteringly called it) is still under construction in the photo, and the Table Bay Hotel has still to be constructed at N0. 6 Quay which was for many years the “home” berth for the Thesen’s Coasters where I started my career. So that dates your photo.

The jetty at which your boats are moored in the photo was where the mooring line-running launches (operated by Larry Ruddy and Robert Quine) berthed, and also the harbour Police launch “Gemsbok” and the SAR&H port wooden launches, “Bus”, “Sparrow” and her identical sister whose name escapes me now but begins with a “K” – something like “Kokewiet”. Further to the left and out of your photo frame was the boat-building yard of Louw & Halvorsen, builders of scores and scores of fine wooden craft for more than 50/60 years. It was there on a 72-ft pilchard trawler built for Mr. Johnny Eigelaar of Velddrif that I performed my first “solo” inclining experiment as part of my naval architecture practical training. Boat’s name was “Langeveld” I think. That was in 1968.

Then Rob remembered some more about the area.

Roy,

Only for completeness’ sake, having remembered it this morning, I confirm the name of the second of the identical twin harbour launches as “Korhaan” (Afrikaans for the long-legged bird “Bustard” )

She and “Sparrow” were nice, fully-enclosed little single-screw craft, all varnished woodwork and polished brass. Built as a pair by L & H in the late 1950’s, I doubt that they still exist.

The larger SAR&H launch “Bus” was twin-screw and was used to assist movement of small trawlers in the Alfred and Victoria basins. She was also L&H-built.

The grand-dame of the lot was the police launch “Gemsbok”, powered by twin Kelvins in a separate stand-up and walk-around engine room aft of the wheelhouse. She had been known to make police trips as far north as Dassen Eiland and as far south as Cape Point.

Rob