Celebrating three score years and 10 of wonderful maritime blessings today

THREE score years and ten ago today, my arrival kept my mother from watching another arrival: that of the British Royal Family in Durban. Since then, I have enjoyed some significant and fascinating maritime experiences.

Thanks to friendly tug masters, I had umpteen tug rides, especially during the 1956-57 Suez closure when the tugs worked almost nonstop.

When the tug returned to her berth at Number 1 Jetty – then a wooden structure dating back to Victorian times – the old Raleigh bicycle that had carried me from Mowbray early in the morning was still there – and never was it locked!

Other schoolboy exploits around the harbour took me aboard a variety of ships – the Union-Castle mailships (I got a permit from the line’s A Berth office, no questions asked), the Dutch Straat ships always welcomed youngsters on board, as did the coasters with their interesting cargoes.

Alongside rust-streaked trampships or smart freighters of renowned liner companies, I watched a wide variety of cargo being worked, including frequent heavylift cargoes: railway locomotives, mining equipment, electrical switchgear, huge boilers and more. To a youngster, such cargowork was impressive.

And, to this hungry lad, a coke in that iconic curved bottle – cooldrinks in cans were unknown – and a packet of slap tjips at the old Harbour Café beckoned.

Like so many folks who followed maritime matters closely, I was fascinated by the informative writings of the Cape Times shipping editor George Young who, for 43 years, filled an entire page with news from Cape Town’s dockland and beyond.

As a teenager, I wandered the harbour daily with him during the long summer school holidays, compiling his Harbour Log that showed ships’ movements, as well as those in port and those expected during the following week.

To this lanky teenager, those harbour sorties with the doyen of shipping writers were simply a wonderful haven after those long, boring and often stormy years in school.

We boarded all types of vessels, often breakfasting with the mailship master shortly after his vessel had arrived from Southampton.

With thousands of others, I watched SA Vaal sail from Cape Town 40 years ago, the last passenger mailship to leave A Berth. I had been there when she changed to the South African flag a decade earlier, and had friends who had sailed in her, while some of her junior officers were acquaintances from my most pleasant Safmarine days.

Sadly, the 120-year-old tradition of the mailships ceased with her departure.

Surprisingly to many, I also appreciate modern ship design. Although geometric and clinical to the extreme in their design, large fully-laden container ships or modern LNG carriers are scientific wonders in terms of the hi-tech computerised systems – aboard and ashore – that dictate cargo stowage, that control ballasting, that govern their machinery with utmost precision, and that provide navigation officers with incredible assistance.

While few ships have the elegant lines of their predecessors, engineering marvels arrive in the harbour daily, although their size – large to locals – compares poorly with the huge container ships and bulkers operating elsewhere.

In the course of my work, I have revelled in numerous opportunities to enjoy a heaving deck beneath my feet on over 20 ships from whose decks I have seen British, European and local ports – and remote islands with wave-hewn cliffs towering above the surging Atlantic.

In addition, shipping has taken me to Scandinavia, Asia, North America... I am indeed a fortunate fellow.

And for over two decades, I have enjoyed sharing my maritime memories with the youngsters at Lawhill Maritime Centre in Simon’s Town.

Indeed, those three score years and ten have been filled with wonderful blessings!