Paintings evoke shipping’s glory days
FOR centuries, people have painted, etched and drawn maritime images. Egyptian records include several rudimentary images of vessels of the time, Roman artwork shows galleys loading grain and wine casks, while, I understand, a sketch of an East Indiaman appears among South African cave art.
More formal images showed vessels’ departures from European ports on their way to the Orient and some artists depicted fleets at the Cape. On some of these canvases, Table Mountain was fairly well represented in terms of its relative size and shape. On others, a distortion is clear, probably the product of an artist painting the scene from memory months after leaving the Cape.
More recent artwork – including the fine work of Thomas Baines – shows the Cape in its various moods, from calm, quiet conditions across the busy anchorage to wild seas driving hapless sailing vessels towards the shore, their sails shredded by the ferocious wind and their yards splintered.
With their lavender hulls, the “Cape fliers”, as Union-Castle’s mailships were known by some, were often the focal point of artworks depicting Cape Town in earlier times. In Parliament is an oil work showing Cape Town harbour in about 1900, with Union-Castle’s four-masted liner Pembroke Castle at South Arm.
A reader of this column sent me images of the remarkable work done by maritime artist Tamas Balogh, who works in the Hungarian president’s office and within whose portfolio fall that country’s heritage sites.
Balogh has published a book containing accurate scale drawings of some 280 passenger ships. In a most attractive series, he has captured the various classes of ships in the Union-Castle fleet from 1900 (represented by Pembroke Castle and several other mailships in service in that year) to the 1961-vintage Transvaal Castle, the last passenger mailship built for Union-Castle.
Among the meticulously prepared drawings published in the book is one of Arundel Castle, shown with four funnels and the rather ungainly lifeboat launching gear abaft the fourth funnel.
Another fine work depicting the final sailing of the mailship – with two funnels – was done last year by renowned Cape Town artist Jeremy Day whose paintings, including fine studies of the three Titanic-class sister ships, have received wide acclaim. Folks will also like his latest painting of RMS St Helena in the island’s anchorage at dusk. The colours and mood of the sea, the lights on the ship, and the darkening island backdrop make this among his best works.
Day’s background research ensures that the finished product portrays a particular scene accurately and that the finest details of the ship are correct.
In the work commemorating Arundel Castle’s final sailing on December 5, 1958, even the wisps of cloud on the mountain mirror the conditions prevailing on the day. Royal Interocean Lines’ passenger ship Tegelberg is at E Berth and the Bank Line freighter Maplebank can be seen at H Berth; again, Day’s browsing through the newspapers of the time established the presence of those ships in port while the tugs TH Watermeyer and TS McEwen were those that attended the mailship’s last departure – and the painted images of the tugs are entirely accurate.
He captured the crowd present at the mailship’s sailing. Even the fabric of the women’s dresses shows the finest details of clothing of the late 1950s.
I have an affinity with Arundel Castle for several of my kortbroek days were spent aboard her after we joined the vessel in East London en route to Cape Town. Even then, she was a grand old lady who had seen more than 33 winters at sea. Seventeen years earlier, she had undergone a major refit that saw her re-engined, two funnels replacing her original four and, instead of her straight stem, naval architects gave her a clipper bow.
She had also survived those harrowing wartime years for which she was converted to carry troops. She emerged with little damage after three Luftwaffe attacks while landing troops in North Africa. In March 1943, under diplomatic immunity and with the British and French flags and the word Protected in huge lettering painted on her sides, she carried wounded German prisoners of war from Liverpool to Goteborg (Sweden) for onward repatriation to Germany, returning with British prisoners of war. After the war, Arundel Castle continued trooping that included a 45 225-nautical-mile, 160-day voyage to India, Malaya, Japan and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and back to London, a Union-Castle record for a single voyage.
Once her trooping role had passed, her austere accommodation for troops was useful for the immigrant trade from Britain to South Africa under the local immigration scheme and also under the Dutch government’s programme to encourage emigration from their war-devastated country, where land was at a premium.
Refitted in 1950, Arundel Castle returned to the mail run with accommodation for 168 first class passengers and 371 in tourist class, very different to her original passenger complement of nearly 900 berths.
The ship was getting old. The effects of her lengthy wartime service – without proper maintenance – began to emerge. Concrete casing had to be installed as permanent ballast and to strengthen the hull.
With Pendennis Castle about to enter service, Union-Castle announced that Arundel Castle would be scrapped.
She had carried many passengers – colonial service personnel en route between UK and southern Africa, immigrants, people enjoying holidays of a lifetime, troops and others – as well as thousands of tons of cargo and thousands of bags of mail.
On that day of finality in 1958, a brass band on Cape Town’s A berth commemorated the old liner’s service as tugs pulled her away from the quay, turned her and, as she steamed into Table Bay, foghorns blared from every ship in port, for she would not come this way again.
In line astern and with and an air force squadron overhead, harbour tugs and South African warships escorted her from the harbour.
Her 37-year career had ended, the longest of any Union-Castle mailship and second among the company’s fleet to the intermediate steamer Llanstephan Castle which had notched up 38 years’ service before heading to the scrapyard in 1952.
As thousands watched from many vantage points, the old liner turned to starboard to head for Southampton, public interest as evident then as it had been on that day in May 1921 when she steamed proudly into Table Bay on her maiden voyage.
Arundel Castle was a grand old lady with 37 winters at sea