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March 19, 2005
An iron bound coast
Even in this day and age ships are still regularly lost on the Southern and Eastern Cape coast. It is not an easy or a forgiving coast - as this recent wreck shows. No lives were lost, but the ship broke within hours of her running aground and the remains are slowly being destroyed by the sea.
The remains of a coastal cargo vessel which went ashore West of East London around four years ago. She broke in half within hours.
This coast has many wrecks stretching back to the time the first Portugese navigators managed to claw their way round the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. They named it originally "The Cape of Storms" but their King decreed a more auspicious name. As a boy I can remember four ships wrecked along this stretch of coast, all of them written off completely within hours of stranding. There is also the mystery surrounding the loss of the SAA Viscount airliner which vanished in this area and has never been found.
Other famous wrecks to the East of East London include the Mail Steamer "Waratah", lost with all hands in a storm, and the Honourable East India Company Ship "Grosvenor" in the 18th Century. Both ships have been the subject of many searchs and, in the case of the Grosvenor, of numerous treasure searches. The survivors from the Grosvenor had the misfortune to survive the wreck and the perils of a forced march which almost brought them to safety in Algoa Bay. Sadly, they died in the dune fields on the Eastern side of that bay of thirst, unaware that digging at the foot of the inland range of dunes would have given them a supply of fresh water.
An artist's representation based on similar ships, of the HEIC GROSVENOR. Note the HEIC's "barred" ensign, which was the flag of the Bombay Marine, the company's private navy, and which could not, by law, be worn by company ships West of the Cape of Good Hope.
Not a coast line to take risks with then, and still claiming ships and lives today.
Posted by The Gray Monk at March 19, 2005 10:06 AM