Page 45 - Bulletin 18 2014

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KALK BAY HARBOUR: CELEBRATING THE CENTENARY OF ITS

COMMENCEMENT ON 7 JUNE 1913

Barrie Gasson

Introduction

The first event to put Kalk Bay on the modern map was the arrival of the railway in May
1883. The second was the construction of the harbour which commenced 30 years later. Both

had common origins in the on-going industrialization of all aspects of life 100 years ago.
Transportation, among other things, was being revolutionised by the application of steam and

internal combustion engines. This meant that the days of Kalk Bay’s sail and oar-powered

beach-boat fleet were numbered, and that at some point they would have to motorise; once
that happened they would require moorings in protected water because of the impossibility of

manhandling larger heavier motorised craft on and off the beach. But because there was no
harbour they remained on the beach and failed to motorise. However the beach, narrowed by

the railway viaduct built across it in 1890, was no longer a safe refuge during storms. A
harbour was therefore key to both the modernization of the fleet and its protection.

This paper is organized in four parts: origins, construction, operation, and change.

Origins

Fishery Beach

In the beginning there was a small sandy cove known as Fishery Beach, with a fleet of 35 to

40 beach-boats drawn up there in the 1890s. There were still one or two whale-boats among