Page 103 - Bulletin 8 2004

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BOATS, BOAT OWNERS AND SKIPPERS OF KALK BAY

THE FISHING BOATS

Tony Trimmel

Introduction

My talk will focus on the boats, boat-owners, skippers and crew of an era when fishermen
were described as “Men of Iron” working on wooden boats before the more modern and

present fishing set-up.

We start from round about the 1850s to 1913 to look at the boats and what they were doing

before the construction of the harbour. Thereafter we will move to the period 1919 to 1939

with the full motorization of the fleet and the completion of the harbour. I will also give
some details of the boat-owners and skippers of these and later times.

The Beach Boat Era: 1850s - 1913

The first recorded boat names in the 1850s were Springbok and Bloubok - these two boats

belonged to the Auret Brothers, Hendrick and Fredrick, whose father – Abraham - was a

very prominent fisherman and whaler in the False Bay area. It was the same Abraham who
petitioned the Cape Government in March 1866 to change the name of Kalk Bay to Ashton

Bay, after Lt. Col. Henry Ashton who was heavily involved with the daily lives of the Kalk
Bay fishermen. Fortunately the petition was unsuccessful.

From an early press report of the Kalk Bay Regatta of 1904 we see some of the boat names

and skippers of that time.