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://ckdboats.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