The weekend’s Navy Festival in Simon’s Town, in addition to giving Mr and Mrs John Citizen some idea of what a previous SA Navy (SAN) chief called the people’s navy, also provided a platform for traditions.
Top of the tradition list was the maritime service exercising its right of entry into Simon’s Town, home of the fleet. The parade saw the SAN band lead a well-drilled company of sailors along with a sea cadet detachment through the streets. Another military tradition the SAN executed was a retreat ceremony and remembrance parade to mark the festival’s closure.
A highlight ahead of the festival proper was a concert with the SAN band in full musical cry on the flight deck of the SAS Mendi (F148). The Valour Class frigate is currently in the Selborne dry dock, officially a graving dock. Named after the then United Kingdom High Commissioner for Southern Africa, William Palmer, Second Earl of Selborne, its foundation stone was laid in November 1906 and opened four years later in 1910. It was handed to South Africa as part of the Simon’s Town agreement in 1957.
The dry dock was previously the venue for SAN band concert with renderings of ships’ badges worked on in it adorning the walls creating a unique naval concert theatre.
For the two days of the festival proper, visitors, once having passed through a time consuming entrance process, could indulge in tug rides, board the SAS Drakensberg (A301) and multi-mission inshore patrol vessel (MMIPV) SAS King Sekhukhune I (P1571) and see into SAS Manthatisi (S101), one of three Type 209 submarines in the SAN fleet.
Precision drill as well as a sword drill, a gun run, demonstrations by the Maritime Reaction Squadron (MRS), firefighting displays, and pulling were among other attractions.
Pulling is a naval tradition which sees sailors in whalers rowing against each other for a trophy. It is not known whether crews competed for the traditional Cock of the Fleet, and the honour of winning. Six-strong crews – five oarsmen and a coxswain man each whaler over a 1 500 m course starting opposite the Lower North Battery to a finish line inside the harbour – a distance of eight cables (approximately 1 500 m). Twenty teams took part in the six races, officially the SAN Festival Regatta.
