south africa | Blog of Batman

End of Wolraad Woltemade

Posted by batman on May 1st, 2010

2010

May 1

The Beginning

Wolraad Woltemade and her sister ship John Ross were in their time the most powerful of their kind on the planet. This pair of South African tugs, or salvage vessels, patrolled the seas around Cape Point and further afield. According to contract, one of them was required to remain in port to handle any emergency, while the other was free to roam the high seas competing for international salvalge prizes. And work there certainly was – with the constant traffic of overweight supertankers going around the point there was almost always someone in trouble.

Wolraad Woltemade was built by Robb Caledon Shipbuilders in Scotland and delivered to Safmarine in Cape Town during 1976, while her sister ship John Ross was built by the Durban shipyards of Elgin Brown & Hamer. These immensely powerful vessels were powered by two Mirrlees-Blackstone type KVMR16 diesels with 19,200 bhp (14,132 kW) – providing unmatched pulling power. They were 94.6 metres long. Ownership of these two sisters has been transferred between Safmarine, Pentow Marine and Smit Marine Cape Town. Current owners have renamed John Ross to Smit Amandla.

The End

Wolraad Woltemade’s time has unfortunately run out. The ‘Standby Tug Contract’ requires the presence of one tug in a South African port at any given time, a duty that has for some years been taken up by her sister tug Smit Amandla. This contract was due for renewal in November 2009, but the South African goverment decided not to renew – leaving our coast unprotected for the first time in 30 years. She was unable to find a buyer, and her somewhat ignomius end is that she has been sold as scrap.

As can be seen from the accompanying photograph, she is riding high, and showing signs of her age. All insignia have been removed in preparation for the breakers. She has since sailed from Cape Town, appropriately her last port of call, and is now awaiting her fate at the hands of the breakers.

Rest in peace, WW.

The Legend

Wolraad Woltemade (c.1708 – June 1, 1773) was a South African dairy farmer, who died while rescuing sailors from the wreck of the ship De Jonge Thomas in Table Bay on 1 June 1773. Read about the legend of the man here on Wikipedia

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Buddy, the amazing talking dog

Posted by batman on Mar 7th, 2010

2010

Mar 7

Buddy, the charismatic brindle Boxer brought to the small screen by Toyota South Africa and its marketing partner of nearly half a centurys’ standing, Draftfcb Johannesburg, has featured in a few television commercials. These commercials are amongst the few that I really don’t mind watching – over and over and over again.

Sophistication in a Toyota Corolla

Buddy is introduced to the South African public as a sophisticated, aristocratic beast of pedigree who disassocates himself with any lower form of life.

What a chop

In this commercial the canine star is off to a dry Karoo farm for the Toyota Hilux. Buddy abandons any attempts to behave with sophistication and grace. Instead, he has fun on the farm mocking the sheep he encounters and making bad jokes, while recognising the Hilux’s toughness. This is my favourite “Buddy” commercial – “what a chop”!

Game Park with the Wild Dogs

In this commercial he is on a game drive, once again pulling up his nose at the “lesser” elements of the animal kingdom.

Automark Used Cars – I don’t do tricks

Here Buddy is strolling through a used car lot, quite adamant that he “doesn’t do tricks!!!”.

If you have any other links to share of really classic commercials that have been made, please post a link – I would love to hear about them. (Please note – this is NOT an invitation for you to market your own product – regardless of how good you think it is, or of how important you think your miracle pharmaceutical product might be – I will not approve/moderate your post)

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Highest definition picture ever taken of Cape Town

Posted by batman on Feb 27th, 2010

2010

Feb 27

Virtual Tours are an organization that provide virtual, often 360º views of various sites, amongst them Nelson Mandela’s jail cell on Robben Island.

One of their most spectacular creations is the so-called “Highest definition picture ever taken of Cape Town” – click here to view. It really is a mind-blowing photographic achievement. Since this photo (the word ‘photo’ somehow seems so inadequate), they have been commissioned to do similar projects of scenes in Gautend and Durban – the start of great things i feel.

Some details as to the size of this image (taken directly from their site):

It was created by stitching 1850,fully zoomed (x 20 optical zoom), 10 MegaPixel images together.
The time it took from the first shot (top left) and last shot (lower right) being taken, was about 3 hours.
It’s 205 000 pixels wide.
That equates to a printout of about 90 m x 15 m!
The end result was a 25 GigaBytes RAW file which takes about an hour to open on my Macbook Pro.

Enjoy – I certainly did. It just reminds me once again why Cape Town is considered one of the most scenic cities in the world!

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