Special Waypoint evokes reflections on 20 years of shipping

Brian Ingpen|Published 1 month ago

Invited by the navy to join an escort vessel for the arrival in Cape Town of USS Thoedore Roosevelt in 2007, I was delighted to see this impressive vessel close-up. Although I had visited HMS Warrior, Albion, Bulwark, USS Midway and other aircraft carriers in my kortbroek days, meeting this ship to the north-west of Robben Island in the predawn light was a most memorable experience. The South African warships escorted her into the bay where she anchored as her deep draught and the under-keel clearance required for her cooling water intakes precluded her from entering port. BRIAN INGPEN

“Those along Cape Town’s Atlantic seaboard,” read the opening words of my first weekly column for Cape Times on January 5, 2005, “should have a good view of the 266m Safmarine Nomazwe when she makes her maiden call, probably on Friday morning….”

This week’s column marks the 20-year waypoint since its first appearance. It has been published weekly, except when the newspaper needed space for additional comment following President Mbeki’s firing of his deputy Jacob Zuma and on two other occasions when shipping yielded to more dramatic news. Astern lie 1 037 columns.

After several unsuccessful attempts to crack the Cape Times during my langbroek days, I finally made the grade. In the newspaper’s Saturday edition on February 2, 1963, my first commercial article appeared. Ceramic - how the Cape liner met her end was the headline to the article describing the Shaw Savill passenger ship’s loss off the Azores after being torpedoed by U-515 while bound for Cape Town in December 1942.

Despite a Cape Times gremlin changing my surname to Gingpen, I was thrilled to see my story in print. About a month later, a cheque for R20 arrived by post, a fortune for the delighted 15-year-old son of a poorly-paid church employee.

Over the years, several other articles appeared sporadically in Cape Times and other publications, until my break 20 years ago.

The voyage has been fun. Through the column, I have met numerous readers, in person or by email - and I have chatted to various groups on maritime matters. Many of those folks have treasure troves of fascinating shipping stories.

After nearly 40 years of trans-Atlantic voyages and world-wide cruising, Queen Elizabeth 2 was withdrawn from service in 2008 to become a floating hotel in Dubai. The most famous cruise ship called at Cape Town numerous times as part of her cruising schedule, dominating the Dockland skyline during those visits. She is seen here on her last call in Cape Town in 2007. ANDREW INGPEN

Preparing the weekly column also led me to appreciate the work of the late George Young who, apart from the war years, wrote a daily shipping column for 43 years when Cape Times appeared six days a week.

Three generations of Cape Times readers will recall George’s writings that reached across the age spectrum, and were read widely, informing shipping folks of maritime developments, while capturing the interest of lay people, especially those who recalled wartime experiences at sea, or leisurely voyages in passenger ships.

In days before razor wire and rottweillers prevented entrance to Dockland, he had direct access to all parts of the harbour and to ships where he unearthed more stories from seasoned shipmasters or chief engineers.

Vigorously competing shipping lines advertised in Cape Times, financing an entire shipping page that kept George busy researching, reading, meeting people and bashing away two-fingered on his Remington typewriter. Sadly, few shipping companies advertise now, while maritime media coverage is sparse, and usually limited to sensationalistic reports on maritime disasters or Transnet’s woes.

I learnt much from George’s shipping columns and from accompanying him around Dockland during my school summer holidays, a privilege for this ship-mad langbroek.

Returning to the opening story, Safmarine Nomazwe and her sistership Safmarine Nokwanda formed part of the six-ship service of new-generation containerships for SAECS. P&O Nedlloyd ran two others, while DAL and Maersk (that had taken over Safmarine six years earlier) each had one ship on the South African trade.

Safmarine Nomazwe, the subject of my first regular column in Cape Times 20 years ago, is shown at speed inward for Cape Town on her maiden voyage in January 2005. Replacing older tonnage, including Safmarine’s four magnificent Big Whites, she was the second of a six-ship fleet that operated on the South Africa-Europe Container Service until larger vessels entered service to provide greater reefer capacity for the rapidly expanding fruit export trade. Regrettably, gone are the conspicuous white-hulled Safmarine ships that once were regular callers here. ANDREW INGPEN

Changes to that service brought to the Cape larger ships with three times the container capacity. A month later, I wrote of the fully-laden 3 427-teu MSC Monica departing Cape Town for Europe, a mini-ship when compared to MSC’s largest vessel with over seven times the container capacity.

Geneva-based MSC has become the largest containership operator with about 6.2 million teu capacity.

While the local container terminal was deepened, upgraded, and eight long-boomed gantries were installed, longer containerships calling restricted the number of vessels alongside simultaneously to three instead of four smaller vessels, contributing to congestion, berthing delays and soaring blood pressure among shippers.

Responding to an invitation to visit the largest ore carrier, the 1986-built Berge Stahl, in December 2006, I hastened to Saldanha Bay, and boarded the 343m vessel, designed to haul 355 000 tons of iron ore from Brazil to Rotterdam.

In a rare deviation in 2006, she carried ore to China, drydocked, and headed to Australia to load a part-cargo for Rotterdam. En route, she topped up at the deeper Saldanha Bay. After a remarkable 35 winters astern, the huge vessel that had been eclipsed by the 402 000dwt Vale-class ore carriers in 2011, was scrapped in Pakistan.

After years of cruise ships berthing at the dilapidated E Berth, the Waterfront developed a sophisticated Passenger Terminal that was opened in 2017. It is a most attractive and comfortable facility that has been a catalyst for the rapidly expanding local cruise industry.

Across the road, though, the Mission to Seafarers quietly closed, a victim of high rentals and social changes among those it once served. No longer can seafarers relax in a neutral place, away from the ship. With whom will a seafarer share a personal anxiety? And the Mission’s chapel is closed, no longer offering Communion and Christian solace for those who desire it.

Also shrouded in sadness and frustration was the demise of South Africa’s powerful salvage tugs Wolraad Woltemade and John Ross, later Smit Amandla and SA Amandla. One of those remarkable tugs – the fastest and most powerful when built – should have been preserved as a multi-purpose museum ship. Despite their unrivalled record of salvage and towage operations, both have been cut up, and their steel melted down for Indian industries. As a record of their operations and as a tribute to their crews and managers, a new coffee table book featuring those tugs will be published later this year.

Sadly, despite their unrivalled history and many other attributes, South Africa’s “Supertugs”, Wolraad Woltemade and John Ross (later Smit Amandla and SA Amandla) could not be saved from the acetylene torches of the scrapyard in Alang, India. The former crossed the Indian Ocean to Alang in 2009, and her sistership followed in 2023. It was particularly distressing to many that John Ross could not be preserved as a museum ship, given her 47 years’ service, being built, owned, managed and crewed in South Africa, as well as her involvement in many local salvage and towing operations. As Smit Amandla, the tug is shown towing the rig Orca into Cape Town for a refit – a role for which Cape Town once was renowned, but sadly, over the years, that important role has been surrendered to other ports. BRIAN INGPEN

Today’s last recollection relates to the diversion of shipping from the Red Sea route, many of which pass hull-down off the Cape. To its great detriment, the country has not had the oomph or vision to attract more of these vessels to berth in our harbours, with umpteen benefits to ancillary services.

It’s been a wonderful 20-year voyage that, deo volente, will continue into new, interesting waters!

Following the construction of an airport on St Helena Island, the popular RMS St Helena made her last passenger departure from Cape Town for the island in January 2018. Passengers had a thoroughly enjoyable holiday aboard during her voyages to St Helena and her annual trip to Tristan da Cunha and Gough Island. Many believe that, in their calculations relating to the construction of an airport on the island, economists did not include the intrinsic value of the ship to the island or to potential passengers as those unique voyages formed an integral part of the island experience. The mailship is shown anchored off Jamestown, St Helena. BRIAN INGPEN

Cape Times