Page 131 - Bulletin 7 2003

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So sailing a boat in those days was an operation involving the entire crew. Quite a
number of lives were lost during those early years when sailing home in bad weather

a sudden squall would come from the wrong direction and blow the sail over onto the
opposite side where the sand bags were and topple the boat over. These tragedies

usually occurred in the winter months when the boats went snoeking at Cape Point

and struggled against the north-westerly winds. It was a common occurrence for
boats fishing for snoek in winter to be caught in strong winds and just simply haul

their boats up on Buffels Bay beach and wait for the weather to subside before they
could sail back home. I believe that some sort of food store existed at the Bay called

Smith’s Winkel Bay where supplies could be obtained, but maybe fish that had
already been caught could have been used for barter. I do believe that if the skippers

decided that the blow would last for quite few days, as it usually does in winter, the

men would simply walk back to Kalk Bay and maybe find a wagon to transport them
back again when the weather abated. Again the name of this skipper Willy Orgill

comes up. It is related that his wife was not well, in fact she was quite ill, when he

left to go fishing and he and others were trapped at Cape Point and they decided to
walk to Kalk Bay. On entering his house he walked straight into his bedroom and as

soon as his wife saw him she smiled and then died, as if she was just waiting for him
to come back.

These men were very remarkable people who, when learning that the snoek were

plentiful in Table Bay, also in winter of course, would drag and carry their open

boats over the railway line (the boats were assumed to have weighed around 2,000
lbs, or a ton) and physically place them on the railway trucks at the Kalk Bay goods

shed. They would be taken down to Cape Town docks and those huge cranes loading
cargo ships would place them into the sea in the Docks and they would spend some

period fishing in Table Bay. Here, sadly enough, a few of the Kalk Bay boats also
capsized and many were drowned. I have also been told that again the hardier and

braver skippers would load their boats onto ox-wagons and have them transported to

Hout Bay to snoek there as well. And when the north-wester would be blowing for a
while they would walk home over the mountains, and when the weather subsided