SAHRA Maritime and Underwater Cultural Heritage
Shawnee wreck in Namibia
September 11:
“This day in our shipwreck and aeronautical wreck history”
1858: Helen, this wooden sailing brig wrecked on Coney Glen Rocks at the Knysna Heads in the Western Cape.
1861: Barbadoes 2, this wooden sailing barque wrecked in a south-easterly gale in Algoa Bay in the Eastern Cape.
1861: Lunaria, this wooden sailing barque wrecked on the West Bank of the Buffalo River in East London in the Eastern Cape.
1874: Hermann, this sailing barque wrecked in a south-easterly gale on North End Beach in Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape.
1887: Mona, this sailing barque caught alight and burned before foundering off Mossel Bay in the Western Cape. Its crew were picked up by the Livingstone and landed at Mossel Bay.
1899: Thermopylae, this steel steam-powered barquentine/freighter wrecked at Greenpoint Lighthouse in Table Bay in the Western Cape on the eponymous Thermopylae reef. On a bright moonlit night, it wrecked because of an error in judgement, being much closer to land than was thought.
1929: King Cadwallon, this steam-powered freighter wrecked in the surf zone at the Esplanade in East London in the Eastern Cape. It caught alight on the 7th of July, about a week out from Durban. Its crew battled the flames before it was abandoned on the 12th of July off the eastern coastline, and everyone taken off on the SS Ardenhall. It remained afloat for 41 days before being sighted off East London. The tug Annie brought it in and two days after being anchored, its cables parted during a south easterly gale, and it wrecked. The East London Museum houses and displays many of its artefacts.
1933: Langebaan, this motor-powered coaster wrecked off Stompneus Point in the Western Cape after the crew mistook a campfire light inland for the light of the coaster’s owners on shore.
1936: Solhagen, this steel steam-powered whaler wrecked on the southern end of Robben Island in Table Bay in the Western Cape. Of its crew of 12, six drowned and the remainder were rescued by rocket apparatus 14 hours later. They had to cling to the rigging and had food dropped on them by plane. An enquiry into the wrecking found evidence that the crew had been intoxicated.
1974: Cape Hangklip, this fishing trawler wrecked off Ystervarkpunt between the Gouritz River mouth and Stilbaai in the Western Cape.
1990: Bluefin, this South African tunny boat broke its moorings and wrecked in a north-westerly gale on the eastern side of Hout Bay, beneath Chapman Peak’s drive, in the Western Cape.
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