Page 129 - Bulletin 7 2003

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was called Willy Orgill. And then this player from the Strand introduced himself to
Orgill by telling him that he was Orgill’s brother playing in the Strand team.

The fishing boats

The boats used by the early people in False Bay were small open boats, and by that is
meant that those craft had no decks for the water to run off from. So all water coming

over the bows would remain in the boat which could be easily swamped in any bad
weather. This was the era when craft of these specific sizes, 16 to 20 feet, were

powered only by oars and sails – usually 5 oars of 16 to 20 feet in length - and

carrying a crew of up to 6 men and a skipper who knew the skills of sailing a boat
without a keel, such as yacht would have. The keel would be a weight under water in

order to counter-balance the effect of the wind pushing at the sail in order to give

motion to the boat. But because these fishing boats had to be hauled onto the beach
each day it would not be possible if they had huge keels like yachts have.

So in order to overcome this problem the crew would load on board half bags of sand

(streep sakke), 3 or 4 every morning before setting off to sea to act as ballast. In
order to sail a boat one would zig-zag your way along to catch the wind in your sail.

Every time you zig your sail to one side you would place your ballast on the side of

the boat opposite to the sail, and repeat when you wished to zag. And so you manage
to keep the boat from being blown over. This dangerous manner of sailing a boat

without a keel has to be masterfully executed by the skipper who would be in full
control of the boat by means of the tiller – that portion of the rudder that controls the

rudder – and the sheet rope - which is part of the end of the sail that is pulled in
tighter or slacked off to catch more wind. When sailing this zig-zag course the

bottom end of the sail would be held by a horizontal boom, and so this would be

swung over from side to side as the boats makes its way on its course. And of course
every time the skipper “about ships”, which was the term used for changing the

position of the boom, the sand bags would also have to be quickly placed over into
the opposite side of the boat. (Fig. 3.30).