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that Deneys Reitz refers to it as an “11 tonner” belonging to Taylor, and one on which he
and his sons, John and Michael, enjoyed much happy fishing in False Bay. It would appear

that this boat co-existed in time with Voyager and Clewer. Born in 1860, Taylor left South
Africa in 1893 and so must have been an absentee boat-owner. Taylor subsequently had

another boat called Daphne built in England, which he describes as being twin-screwed and

capable of some 12 knots, suggesting a departure from the traditional fishing boat lines.
Whether this boat was moored in Kalk Bay is not known. The Skipper of Daphne, one Dick

Turpin, probably was afterwards Abe Bailey’s man in charge of Clewer. There is a picture
of a boat named Daphne, in the book by Stibbe and Moss, that was wrecked in the storm of

1978. She may have been Taylor’s Daphne - certainly the hull form is suggestive of that.

So we come to late thirties and very early forties and the four boats owned by Tromp van

Diggelen, the well known “strongman”. First was the Felicity (Fig. 3.28) which appears to
have been what we would term today a semi-planing hull. This seeks to marry the easily

driven features of the true displacement hull form with some of the characteristics of the

planing hull form - the most efficient of which, of course, would be a flat-bottomed
squarish shape, rather like a tea tray. This would be fine in perpetually flat water but

disastrously impractical in any other sea condition.

So Felicity would have been capable of significantly higher speeds than both Voyager and
Clewer, but at a price, and incapable of the speeds of the true planing hull. This price is

reflected in the fact that at low speeds the semi-planing, or planing hull is not efficient as

regards propulsive effort required. This is because the “line form” of the planing hull drags
water behind it at any speed - at very low speeds a negligible amount, at speeds between 9

to 18 knots an expensive amount, and above 20 knots a relatively less expensive amount,
expressed in litres per mile.

This may seem to be a strange mixture of terms but the mile I refer to is the Sea Mile of

2000 yards, which is exactly one minute of arc of the surface of the earth, measured along