SHIP WRECKS OFF THE CAPE PENINSULA COAST

Not for nothing, particularly during winter,  was the Cape of Good Hope  known as the Cape of Storms. Of course not all shipwrecks took place during violent winter storms although these certainly added to the high drama of rescue if at all possible. The reasons for the disasters were many and varied.  Human error, weather, difficulties in reaching out of the way wrecks,  bureaucracy working at a slow pace to improve safety factors but even when improvements came, more lighthouses along the coast, ship wrecks still occurred

It is said that in 1698 heavy mist played a role in the wreck on the rocks at Oudekraal of the the Dutch ship Het Huis te Craijenstein.  Still, despite the mist sixteen of the nineteen money chests were salvaged.  There is a specific rock in the sea known as “geldkis” (money box) which it is thought to have been the cause of the ship foundering.  In the 1860s a 227kg brass cannon and a few silver ignots were salvaged.

In December 1794 the Sao Josene, a Portuguese slave ship carrying 500 slaves, was wrecked at Camps Bay.  Two hundred of those unfortunate people from Mozambique were drowned.  In June 1822 Fame, a British wooden sailing ship was disabled not far off Graaff’s Pool, Sea Point.  A north west gale was reported to have been blowing at the time the vessel was making its way from Madras to London.

In 1836 a French brig, La Camille, was wrecked at Strandfontein on a voyage from Reunion.  Her cargo consisted of tortoise shells, nutmeg, cloves, coffee, sugar.  Fortunately no lives were lost.  Another was Le Protie, a French whaling brig on a voyage from Nantes.  She ran aground in January 1839 while trying to enter Simon’s Bay at night.  No lives were lost.  The for sale notice appeared  less than a week later in the SA Commercial Advertiser.

A cargo of 839 barrels of sperm whale oil was the cargo of the Admiral Cockburn, a British whaling barque, when it was wrecked at Muizenberg in July 1839.  The ship had been built in Philadelphia in 1809.  The whale oil was saved and none of the 80 crew members were lost.

The Paragon was wrecked in April 1840 also during a north west gale while on the way from Mauritius to London with a cargo of sugar.  No lives were lost.

SA ADVERTISER AND MAIL

Great excitement must have been caused among the local inhabitants of Muizenberg when on 29 August 1862 the remains of the ship Johanna Wagner, a Prussian barque  wrecked at Strandfontein, was sold on the beach at Muizenberg.  With great enthusiasm the sellers invited shipwrights, carpenters, builders and lime burners to the sale to view and hopefully buy what had been saved from the ship: spars, riggings, sails, timber, ”an immense quantity of firewood, also a large lot of Rattans” and the remainder of the wreck and cargo –bales tobacco, baskets sugar, baskets India rubber etc.

Muizenberg was also the area where the Felix Vincidor ran aground.  This happened at night in July 1841.  It carried  a cargo of spirits and wine from Lake Ontario to Simon’s Bay.  No loss of life occurred.

SS Clan Monroe on route from Liverpool to Delagoa Bay was wrecked on 1 July 1905 near Kommetjie. This was sparsely populated rural area and it took a while to organise a rescue of the twenty crew members.

Approximately ten months later on 21 May 1906 the SS Oakburn from New York to Sydney was wrecked in the vicinity of Duiker Point.  The ship’s cargo included railway equipment, glassware, sewing machines, musical instruments etc.  To reach the area was not easy, the evening was foggy.  Two of the crew drowned. Two days later it was reported that the wreck had been handed over to the owners agents and the underwriters agents.  Not long thereafter an advertisement appeared in the local press calling for tenders to salvage the ship as well as cargo aboard. – oil in cases and barrels and general merchandise.

In November 1914 the British steamer the SS Clan Stuart ran aground.  The reason was that her anchors dragged in a south east gale.  Her cargo consisted of coal. She had just come from St Helena.  Many Capetonians have seen the ship’s engine block sticking out of the sands as one drives from Glencairn towards Simon’s Town.

Matters that come to mind when reading or writing about shipwrecks is that one can learn about world geography, commercial interaction between countries, the kinds of goods sold and how important the Cape of Good Hope as a shipping route was and still is.

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