Taylored Trips – Places of Interest – V & A Waterfront - Cape Town Harbour

I’m not sure whether it is common knowledge or not but

here are a few interesting facts about the working harbour/tourist attraction/residential area known as the V & A Waterfront in the Cape Town harbour.The concept started sometime in the early ‘90’s if I remember correctly, when someone came up with the brainwave of changing the Cape Town harbour

into a tourist destination along the lines of the hugely successful New Orleans waterfront, I think it was. The SAR&H (South African Railways and Harbours) as it was then agreed to let the premises on a 99-year lease and this attraction has become the most visited tourist destination in South Africa.

V & A stands for Victoria, the Queen of England and her son Alfred after who the first two basins (harbours) at the Port of Cape Town are named. Our colonial heritage was still very strong then. The Alfred Basin was the first docks at Cape Town. It was built between 1860 and 1870.

Alfred Basin circled in red, Victoria Basin above that and the Marina below

The bigger Victoria Basin was added much later (completed in 1905) and the Marina, which used to be the Tank Farm because it

housed huge crude oil tanks in a pit, even later.

The Marina with residence in the background

In days gone by the incoming ships would tie up alongside the Port Captain’s offices, now called the Clock

Tower (where the swing bridge is) at the entrance to the Alfred Basin before entering the harbour. There is a channel from the wall at the cutting, below the water line, which runs into the Clock Tower where the ship’s captain could see whether the tide was coming in or going out so that he knew

how to moor the ship when coming to his allocated spot on the wharf. If he moored the lines too tightly on the high tide he would be left hanging on the wall come low tide, if you see what I mean.

The 1st Port Captains offices, now known as The Clock Tower. Built in 1882

Once the Alfred harbour was built, you can understand that if you wanted to get from the clock tower to the other side of

the pier head, it was a very long walk. The Penny Ferry, a small rowing boat, was then introduced to enable people to get to the other side quickly and this service ran for more than a century. The Penny Ferry has since been replaced with the swing bridge.

Swing Bridge with the 2nd Port Captain’s building on the right

The 3rd and current Port

Captain's building on the right at the end of the pier and part of the Victoria Basin with the breakwater just beyond

The Alfred Basin also has a dry dock and a syncro lift, both of which are works of art and still in use today. They used to have swimming competitions in the Robinson dry dock in the good old days (not when it was dry though).

Robinson Dry Dock with Signal Hill in the background

Dry dock wall or "plug"

Here is a brief description of how a dry dock works. The grey thing in the middle of the picture above (circled in red) is a floating wall which is

positioned at the entrance to the dry dock once a boat has been manoeuvred into the waterfilled space of the “dry dock”. A templet of the boat’s hull is positioned on the floor prior to the boat being brought in as seen in the top picture. The floating wall is then filled with water and it sinks into position where

you see it in the picture above. In the top picture I am actually standing on that wall which then doubles as a bridge. Once the wall is in position the “dry dock” itself is then pumped dry, the boat lowers down and settles on the templet and then maintenance work can be carried out on the boat. If you look

closely at the top picture, there is a tug on the dry.Those of you with good memories and a taste for the night life will remember a very vibrant club in the Waterfront called The Pump House. It was called that because that is where the pumps were (and probably still are) for the dry dock pumping.

Believe me that place could PUMP. It is now the Comedy Club. The following is some information about the ingenious syncro lift. The syncro lift was invented in the 1950’s by a guy called Raymond Pearlson. He sold his company and the rights to the lift and then spent years installing his

syncro lifts in hundreds of shipyards around the world for the company that bought it from him. Rolls Royce now own that company. A syncro lift is used to lift ships up out of the water so that maintenance work can be carried out on the hull. A huge platform is lowered into the water with

cradles and wedges to fit the profile of the ship’s hull. The ship is then brought in and positioned accurately above the platform and cradles. The syncronised motors wiz into life and raise the platform with the ship on it. The ship can then be moved off the lift platform on railway lines to a network of

“parking bays” where the ships are parked while they carry out maintenance work on them. Once the work has been completed, the reverse procedure takes place and the ship is put back to sea. Quite ingenious and very intriguing to watch, if you have the time. The Robinson dry dock is

a different system completely but it achieves the same objective. That is to allow work to be carried out on the hull of a ship.

Syncro lift platform. Two rows of grey motors can be seen on either side of the platform

A close-up of one of the motors with its bonnet open

The entire syncro lift set-up with the "parking bays" where the boats are parked

Up on the hill above the parking garage opposite the Ferryman’s Tavern, where the rugby museum is, is a building with a strange

round object on a pole on its roof, this is the Time Ball.

The Time Ball

This time ball was operated from a building in Observatory which is about

10 kms away. Every hour, on the hour (not at night), the ball, which is at the top of the pole, would drop to the bottom signalling the hour for ships that were anchored out in the bay. Even though a canon was and is still fired daily from Signal Hill at 12 noon, the delay of the sound reaching the ship was

deemed too inaccurate, so some poor nafi had to sit in the crow’s nest and watch the ball. How about that! Ok, in my story on the Cape Town Carnival, I promised a little more on the new Silo Hotel, here then is a little more on this 28-room luxury hotel.

The Silo Hotel

They have taken the old silos, the tallest building in Sub-Saharan Africa when it was built in 1940 and

turned our landmark eye-sore into an extraordinary hotel that sets a new standard in luxury travel and accommodation. We won’t discuss their tariffs here because this is a family blog and I don’t want to upset anyone.

Hotel entrance

Hotel foyer

The old gantries and chutes that were part of the loading mechanisms for the grain elevators have been incorporated in the foyer and entranc

e portal to give a contrasting effect between old machinery and extreme modern luxury. In September this year an art museum will be opened in the actual silo area. This Zeitz MOCAA contemporary art museum will hold its head up high with other rival museums around the world.

So don’t forget to make a point of going to see this in the near future. They say it is not to be missed.The nuance of art is very prevalent in the decor of the foyer giving this establishment a class all of its own.

Foyer

Willaston Bar on the 6th Floor

Stunning top floor pool with a view

11th Floor terrace, garden, restaurant and bar

Many, many years ago when I worked in the harbour I used to buy the most delicious crisp fried chips with a spicy out-of-this-world

sprinkle that only the Cape Malay spice connoisseurs could conjure up. The shop was called Zia’s, I think, and she used to mix the spices herself. Man, I wish I could find that taste again. Zia’s Take Away food was in this beautiful stone masonry building.

I’ll leave you with this picture to ponder over. Imagine how long a boat must have been tied to this old canon to wear a groove this deep.

Until next time, “Keep on Tripping!”