How the mighty SA Navy has fallen

We were as green as the massive walls of angry sub-polar water outside the portholes, which were tossing round the 3 000- ton ship around as though it were a plastic toy. The “Roaring Forties” in the South Atlantic were living up to their billing as some of the most ferocious stretches of sea in the world.

The white-coated stewards in the officers’ wardroom of the SAS Protea were rocking and rolling in perfect time to the pitching of the ship, not spilling a drop of the food or drinks on the trays they carried out from the galley.

Everyone was looking at us, the civvies, who were struggling to keep anything down. The Roaring ’40s brings weapons-grade seasickness. Breakfast was served: greasy eggs and bacon, swimming in fat … the sort of thing that will get most queasy stomachs turning over.

I managed not to vacate the wardroom table prematurely once during that three-week voyage to Antarctica and back. That earned me a little grudging admiration from the Navy salts.

And, in turn, they earned my respect. What sort of a career is it, I would think, where you would willing shut yourself up with others in close proximity, for months at a time, in an environment which could be uncomfortable or dangerous? Where you would not be paid much, not see your family and children for long periods.

When I asked them, they would laugh and offer various explanations. For some, seafaring was in the family, handed down from grandfather to father to son. To others, it definitely beat the hell out of sitting at a desk. And, of course, as one 50-something petty officer from the Cape Flats – married for more than 30 years – told me, “this is the world’s most romantic profession …”

The old adage of a girl in every port, he swore, was rubbish, “but every time you come home, it’s like falling in love all over again”. Then, with a twinkle, he added: “And, just as you start to annoy each, you’re off again! The best way to keep a marriage together.”

I thought about those sailors – who have fallen in love with the sea – as I read reports about the ongoing collapse of the SA Navy.

There’s not enough money to maintain the expensive submarines and frigates – bought in the big arms deal of the ’90s – and the operational budget is so shrunken that the ships which are seaworthy (and very few of them are) can’t put to sea for their budgeted hours annually.

Effectively, we have no maritime patrol or protection capacity … so foreign fishing vessels plundered our waters in our Exclusive Economic Zone, which stretches out 200 nautical miles from our coast and includes our islands in the South Atlantic.

It’s a sad fall from excellence. Back in the ’90s, one of our “old” diesel-powered French-built, Daphne-class submarines was on exercise off Cape Point with a state-of-the-art American guided missile destroyer.

The Americans couldn’t find the South African sub despite their technology – until it popped up its periscope and sent a message: “Bang! You’re dead!” The Yanks, I was told, were embarrassed – and furious.

When you have a capability like that, even the world’s Number One Superpower has to take you seriously. Nowadays, not so much …

Brendan Seery.

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