Jan-Feb, Mar-Apr, May-Jun 1965 - Navy League of Australia

South Africa's Merchant NavyAbout 12,000 to 10,000 B.C.,when Africa was joined to Europeby land bridges across theStraits of Gibraltar and throughItaly, Sicily and Malta, therewere great migrations on foot ofpeople across these land bridges.To these were added furthertravellers in a later age, both bysea and land to form the complexadmixture of peoples whoAnally made up the combinationsof Bantus, Hamites, Semites, Sudanitesand others speaking morethan 1,000 languages on the AlricanContinent.Ships had been made by theSumerians about 7,000 B.C. andthe first pictorial representationof a ship dates from 3,900 B.C.The Phoenecians by 2,000B.C. were already becoming agreat maritime power and grewin strength till in 840 B.C., when>wmv»o»*ooo»o»o*o+»o*vo»****»*ENJOYSHELLEY'SPASSIONFRU1TCarthage, which is Tunis today,had at its zenith a population of1,000,000 persons. Herodotus in430 B.C. tells of a commissiongiven by the Egyptian Necho toPhoenecian traders about 604B.C. to circumnavigate Africaand that the voyage was completedafter three adventurousyears. A great deal of the movementthen, by sea and overlandin North Africa was in quest ofgold.Before the Christian era, whenNorth Africa was in the hands ofthe Romans. Arabian ships passingdown the Red Sea are saidto have reached as far south asMadagascar. By 25 B.C. the RedSea route to the East was madesafe by Augustus and in 47 A.D.systematic trade with the East bysea was made possible.DELITEHistory tells of these adven­>»»»»#•»»» >yA REFRESHING NEW SOFT DRINKMADE FROM FRESHSUN-RIPENED PASSIONFRUITJturous souls who took to the seacenturies ago and in the mostimpossible vessels. It is extraordinarythat in those earliertimes so-called ships survived a*all or that people continued tosail in them.History of NavigationThe history of navigation is, infact, a story of martyrdom whichrelates over the years how mandefied the unpropitious gods andsuffered the punishments towhich they were condemned intorture chambers they calledships. Perhaps they were firstcalled vessels from that time becausethe dictionary defines theword "vessel" as a hollow receptacle,and that is about all theywere.This may sound quite contraryto the usual concept of Jolly JackTar and a glorious life on theA SAILING SHIP WHICH FOR MANY CEN­TURIES PROVIDED MAN WITH HIS MAINMEANS OF TRANSPORTATION ACROSSTHE WATERTHE NAVYbounding main, but neverthelessit is true. From the beginning oftime, man has traversed waterfor one reason or another, on alog, a raft, a coracle, caravel,galleon, junk, kayak and sampan,right up to the present ship,which largely has developed tothis stage from sail to steam, inour own living memories.In those others a sailor's lifewas hell on earth, or, rather, onthe water, because he was subjectedto unending misery anddanger as well as gruelling pain,hunger and thirst. There just hadto be a certain degree of heavyindulgence on land in foreigncountries to allow him to bringback those tales of wild orgies,women and drink. He probablyembellished his stories becausehe would not have been believedif he said he had sailed voluntarilyin such trying circumstances.It was Samuel Johnson whosaid in 1759: "No man will be asailor who has contrivanceenough to get himself into jail;for being in a ship is being injail, with the chance of beingdrowned. A man in jail has moreroom, better food and commonlybetter company."Who can explain why oneman calmly decides from thecomfort of an armchair at hometo volunteer an attempt at the icywastes of Mount Everest and anotherto face the dangers of sailingthe high seas in all weathersin a boat we would call a fishingsmack today?Since the turn of this century,there has been a greater advancein ships, speed and the comfortsand security provided for sailorsthan there was in the previousthousand years. It is an interestingthought that the greaser andable-bodied seaman of today hasbetter food, greater comforts andis infinitely safer at sea than theEmperors and Kings bound forthe East in the days of the Cru-JANUAKY -FEBRUARY. 1965saders because those wealthy andcolourful gentlemen had none.Yet, there would seem to bedangers at sea today, too. It is amatter of statistics that an astonishingnumber of ships are sunkat sea every year, proving perhapsthat there still is considerabledanger, even if materialcomfort has been improved.Most of them are wrecked, butothers founder, bum, collide orare missing.Slow to StartShipping in South Africa froma national point of view wasslow to start and for most of thetime since the Cape was firstsettled over 300 years ago thiscountry's shipping needs havebeen served almost exclusivelyby the ships of overseas companies.Towards the end of last centurythere was quite a prosperouscoastwise shipping industrymainly owned in South Africaand this position still obtains today.Indeed, the fleet is growingand is of great importance to thiscountry's coastal trade.There was never any worthwhileattempt to provide transoceantrading ships under SouthAfrican ownership. Sea sense hasbeen strangely lacking in a peopledescended from the maritimeraces nf Britain, Holland, Franceand Germany but this possiblyis because South Africa is acountry of great distances inlandand has only a few ports widelyscattered round the 2,000 milesof coast. Also the distance ofSouth Africa from internationalfields of battle and the fact thatour shores until recently wereprotected by the British Navy,also affected the position.However, since the SecondWorld War Simonstown revertedto South Africa's care and a tidylittle navy of our own is beingbuilt up.Another factor to hinder localenthusiasm may have been thelarge number of ships afloat andin competition with each other.Last November for instance, 275ships of just over 1,750,000 tonsgross were laid up through lackof employment. This, however,represents only 1 per cent, ofthe total world fleet. Also at thattime, just six months ago, therewere under construction at theshipyards of the world, no fewerthan 1,363 ships of all kinds,totalling 9,173,034 tons gross,thus adding roughly 5 per cent,to the fleet. Japan, by the way,seems to have won the crown forlargest total tonnage being builtwith just over 1,600,000 tons tobuild, against Britain's secondplace with 1,400,000 tons.SafmarineSeveral commercial shippingcompanies were formed in thepost-war boom but only twohave survived, namely, Safmarine,the most important, andS.A. Lines Ltd., which is underGerman control, although registeredin Cape Town. Thestraightforward history of Safmarineis by now probably wellknown but if I may be excusedsome repetition, I will tell yousome of the things about thecompany not perhaps so widelyknown.Safmarine was formed in 1946and active operations with threesecondhand victory ships CON­STANTS, MORGENSTER andVERGELEGEN, were startedabout a year later.It is an interesting thoughtthat these ships cost just over£1,000,000 for the trio, comparedwith a cost of about£1,500,000 to replace each oneof them today.Safmarine's share capital thenwas £800,000 owned 40 percent by American interests and60 per cent, by South African investors.The first board of directorswas of a scintillating character,including Dr. H. J. vander Bijl as chairman, Sir Arthur.