Cape Africa News

A quayside in the Dockyard in Simon's Town has been the scene of much activity over the past week following the arrival of the bulk carrier 'Cape Africa' in False Bay last Tuesday, where she is presently at anchor some 6.9 kilometers off Simon's Town with the salvage tug 'Smit Amandla' in attendance. Salvors SMIT Salvage have announced that the second phase of the salvage operation - the repair process - will begin with the fitment of a habitat over the area of structural damage on the bulk carrier on Wednesday of this week and personnel have been hard at work in Simon's Town finalising preparatory work on the habitat, which is a massive steel structure measuring some 26m x 11m x 1,5m in size.

The bulk carrier 'Cape Africa', under tow by the salvage tug 'Smit Amandla', will enter the Port of Cape Town this afternoon. Yesterday evening, with the 'Cape Africa' cargo lightening operation complete and the specialized lightening vessel 'Bandar' en route to Saldanha Bay to discharge the final load of iron ore cargo removed from the bulk carrier, the convoy of tug and tow, under escort by the SMIT tug 'Pentow Service' and the oil pollution vessel 'Kuswag IV', left False Bay en route to Cape Town.