Extreme Elements: Boatbuilding in Cape Town, South Africa
A wild South African adventure finds our senior editor amidst violent storms, seals, lions, baboons, giraffes—and Leopards.
Photos by Pim Van Hemmen
Boatbuilding in Cape Town, South Africa
A wild South African adventure finds our senior editor amidst violent storms, seals, lions, baboons, giraffes—and Leopards.
It wasn’t until we’d reached the rhinos that I thought maybe we needed to get the heck off this South African savanna. The rhinos themselves weren’t the issue. The trio of dinosaurian pachyderms stood contentedly munching on hay, ignoring not only our vintage six-wheel-drive Land Rover, but a looming desert thunderstorm. The storm though, was impossible to ignore. Colleagues Jeff Moser, Pim Van Hemmen and I had joined a crew from Cape Town’s Robertson and Caine, builders of Leopard Power Catamarans, for a safari in the spectacular 28,000-acre Inverdoorn Game Reserve. Gray clouds that had threatened for the previous couple of hours of trekking through the unusually muddy backcountry had now organized into a formidable gust front that tumbled down the mountains to our northwest and torched the sky with webs of lightning. We’d spent a couple of hours amongst the park’s sizeable contingent of lions, giraffes, wildebeests, cape buffalo, zebras, hippos and antelopes, but had yet to see a cheetah or well, a leopard. That, unfortunately would have to wait. During a typical South African summer, this normally parched veldt is an easy trek for the reserve’s experienced guides and venerable Defenders. But not this summer.
We abandoned the rhinos as a wall of wind and rain slammed into our open-sided lightning-rod vehicle a couple miles south of the refuge of the lodge. Our excellent guide, Johannes, mashed the throttle.
I’d never been to South Africa, but lord knows, I’ve always considered it a Holy Grail. As a former editor at Surfer magazine, I’ve long marveled at images of the country’s scenery and waves. It’s here along the “Cape of Storms” that the cold Atlantic and warm Indian Ocean meet, fueling globe-circling storms from the Roaring 40’s to create ship-sinking tempests and mammoth swells.
When Dan Harding asked if I was up for a trek that might permit surfing, a proper safari and a few days not only checking out the remarkable factories where Robertson & Caine builds Leopard and Moorings catamarans, but testing them amidst these storm-tossed seas, I was stoked.
At Newark airport, my crew met up with Steve Long and his assistant Cristina Strait. Steve’s been Leopard and The Mooring’s marketing director since 2005, but this would also be his—and Cristina’s—first visit to South Africa. In spite of a 14-hour overnight flight across six time zones, I was wide awake as our flight approached Cape Town. Above a mirror-smooth ocean, we flew directly over the notorious Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in prison pounding quarry rocks for challenging South Africa’s Apartheid government. Then Cape Town’s modern downtown swung into view beneath a light haze of smog, framed by the iconic mesa known as Table Mountain.
We were met by our guides, Rob Kamhoot and Peter O’Hanlon. You could not ask for a more qualified duo. Rob, today, owns a boutique Cape Town media firm called Nautique. He spent his early years charging South African waves and through the early 90’s, lived feral, piloting rickety inter-island freighters and sailboats around the Indonesian archipelago hunting waves and adventure. O’Hanlon is a surfer, competitive figure skater and a 20-year veteran commander and ship’s captain in the South African Navy. Today an incredibly fit (and funny) 75, he’s also a lead instructor and commander for South Africa’s all-volunteer National Sea Rescue Institute—that country’s version of the Coast Guard. The pair interact with a calm self-assuredness borne of surviving the wild streets, backcountry and waters of their homeland.
Over an excellent Thursday dinner, we discussed a five-day itinerary. For Friday, we’d tour the multiple Robertson & Caine facilities where over 2,000 South Africans build 200 luxury catamarans a year. Saturday, would be a light jet-lag recovery day, “and maybe you and I can sneak out and catch some waves,” Rob said. I wondered though, about the elephant in the room—great white sharks. A good buddy of mine—on surfari here about 25 years ago—watched as a friend bobbing alongside him was eaten by one. Rob shrugged. “We’ve had a pod of orcas around,” he said in a trademark South African brogue. “They’ve developed a taste for great white shark livers. It’s become a bit of a problem actually, because they’re killing all the sharks.”
On Sunday, we’d make for an overnighter at Inverdoorn Game Reserve and be back in time to trial the Leopard/Moorings brand new 40-foot powercat. That last bit would prove a tall order.
Cape Town is a troubled, beautiful and vibrant metropolis of over four million souls. Everything here; waves, vistas, wealth and poverty—is simply amplified. It’s a radical mashup of New York City, San Francisco, Laguna Beach, Big Sur and Kingston, Jamaica with the most spectacular of the Grand Canyon’s mesas and ridgelines thrown in. After check-in at the Protea Breakwater Lodge (a citadel originally built as a British prison back in 1859) Rob and Peter warned us: despite the relative safety and first-worldliness, don’t head out alone and keep batteries charged. “We have something here called ‘load sharing,’” Rob said. “Our power grid is in trouble.” Everywhere, scheduled power outages necessitate diesel power generators.
The next morning, our guides properly timed the stoplight blackout and we rolled to Robertson & Caine’s generator-protected Woodstock factory. The windowed engineering offices gave a panoramic sweep of a vast, modern indoor production line where around 20 Leopard sailing catamarans were arrayed through advancing stages of build. The R&C team: General Manager Jurgen Bandat, Designer Howard Loveday, Manufacturing Director Donovan Thomas, Engineer Euclid Nkuna and Factory Manager Johan von Backstrom gave us the skinny on the largest catamaran builder in the southern hemisphere and the third largest in the world.
Robertson and Caine’s roots lie with sailor and engineer John Robertson. Robertson grew up in the Cape Town sailing community of Zeekoevlei and started building monohull sailboats in 1968 thanks to funding from a motorcycle accident insurance payment. His quality racing builds could endure the gales and towering waves of the southern oceans, but the job was a struggle as Robertson and his eventual partner, South African sailing legend Jerry Caine, were basically financing their next boat with the sale of the previous one.
A decision was eventually made to start building more family friendly boats, and Robertson and Caine formally launched on a shoestring in 1991. In the mid 1990’s, Lex Raas, CEO of The Moorings yacht charters, visited R&C and ordered ten sailing catamarans. Sturdiness, stability and seaworthiness convinced him to order ten more. Eventually, Robertson and Caine became the Moorings’ sole supplier for sailing—and eventually motor catamarans. They would build a profitable operation with The Moorings and sister company Sunsail, while their private brand, Leopard, took off—particularly in the U.S.
With the pending launch of the new 40-foot Leopard/Moorings powercat, Robertson and Caine will offer three power and three sailing cats. They’re planning a six-year product cycle for each, essentially phasing their oldest model every year.
Howard Loveday described R&C builds on what he called a design spiral. The broad, outer ring is the concept phase. “And then as we head towards the center, things become more and more detailed until we get our final set of production drawings,” he said.
With the 40PC, R&C actually first envisioned a downsized 38-foot version of their 46 and 53. The challenge was to not only offer similar comfort at that size, but performance, because as catamarans shrink, they become more trim sensitive and less hydrodynamically efficient. Consulting with Leopard/Mooring’s stateside VP Franck Bauguil and a European R&D team, initial renderings were sent to renowned fluid dynamics master and naval architect Alex Simonis.
After concepting and Simonis’ input, the 38-footer had grown two feet. As with all their builds, R&C next constructed a full-size mockup out of chipboard. “And then we assess the aesthetic and ergonomic aspects,” said Loveday. “It’s nice to be able to actually sit at the tables, lie on the bunks, walk in the passages and make sure everything is working.”
Next comes engineering. “To make sure it’s manufacturable and ends up being a boat that you can put on the water—and it stays there safely,” said Nkuba. “The systems department deals with anything that floats—electrons, water molecules, or air molecules. The composites department is responsible for the safety of the vessel—the structure, the composites, all of the stainless-steel parts on the outside. Then finally, the construction department basically brings the ambiance, designs the interior, makes sure that we’ve got quality finishes, all of the joinery is done and detailed properly and everything works. Then over and above that, what we do in engineering is support production—all of the details required to actually produce this boat.”
R&C builds at a spread of facilities close enough to Cape Town Harbor to float a new boat almost every business day. Because they’re a high-volume operation, cabinetry and joinery for all boats is produced in a shared CNC facility. Woodwork is standardized, but if a customer wants a customized desk or table setup, the joinery shop is where it’s done.
Each factory positively hums with a myriad of workers from every part of southern Africa—urban Durban and Johannesburg, rural tribal areas, desert veldt and of course, Cape Town. At their Hoist Avenue facility, Line Manager Jacques Brink showed how outer and inner hull molds are clamped together around fiberglass mat and a layer of resin is injected between to form the hull. I’d always wondered how you prevent the resin from sticking to the molds, and Brink explained that they’re covered with a slippery substance called Chemlease.
Brink took us to the hull of a Leopard 42. Its base was covered with a thin layer of green structural foam called Mycell that’s pockmarked with holes to absorb resin. The foam is then covered a with layer of clear plastic sheeting with scores of interconnected tubes protruding like a pincushion. Some are vacuum tubes but most deliver resin. The massive plastic sheet is sealed at the edges and pumped with a vacuum, forcing resin to soak into the foam, fiberglass cloth and every nook and cranny evenly with no bubbles—dramatically increasing strength. It also allows for off-gassing of fumes. “In the past we used to hand laminate everything, so the styrene fumes were quite excessive,” said Brink. “This is a much healthier way.”
When laid up and joined, a team of crafstmen and women descend on the hulls to apply layers of fiberglass cloth—everywhere—before an outer resin layer seals it all up. This is where you can plainly see how the “Roaring 40’s” inform R&C design. Structural wood and even more cloth is added anywhere—rail attachments or mast cable anchors—where greater stresses occur. The result is a tank-tough hull.
At the factory for the 45 sailing cat, delightful Floor Manager Rocenda Randima put the post-molding operation into context. Randima has been running this facility for four years. Her line—R&C’s busiest—drops a boat every four and a half days. Each station has a predefined ‘to do’ minute-by-minute checklist that’s meticulously designed so that the work at one station finishes just in time for the next station to take the boat. Environmental sustainability, recycling and worker-injury updates (fortunately nothing recent) populate each station.
In addition to the cacophony from ventilation fans, drills, saws and compressors, the floor—which holds rail-transported hulls—is a blur of music—with nearly every workstation blasting Jamaican reggae, American soul and local rap star EarlyB—a wildly popular artist who Rob actually convinced to record a surprise song and video for R&C’s workers. Workers are methodical—laying resin to mount storm-strong bulkheads, attaching cleats, rails window and door frames. Their work is exacting and demanding, but they greeted Randima, one another and us with a smile—and broke into dance when a favorite song dropped. Orange-jumpsuited rookies hopped from station to station amidst an 18-month training period. “So they’ll be ready for any job,” said Randima. At an electronics station, Randima beamed as installers ran miles of cable while another pair tested a newly hooked up stereo system—loudly. “All this is done by hand,” she said. “It makes us very proud.”
At the end, the 32,000-pound boats are hoisted into mammoth pools equipped with storm-imitating sprinklers. Everything—hull, fuel lines, plumbing and tanks—is checked for leaks. After a final checkout, the boat is loaded onto a harbor-bound trailer. Then at 4 a.m., said Randima: “Off it goes.”
With plenty of daylight left, Rob informed us that it looked like the 40, going through frantic final configurations for its Miami boat show debut, would’t be available for our test. I was dismayed, but honestly, only just a bit. He instead lined up a trek aboard a Moorings 46. A summertime front had swept through, ushering in 10- to 15 knots of chilly Atlantic air and a gloomy, California-esque marine layer. From the harbor, the air hitting Table Mountain created a cascade of clouds and Rob noted the bonus of Cape Town’s near constant wind. “It’s called the ‘Cape Doctor,’” he said noting that “It pulls the air pollution away.”
The weather scuttled our initial plan to head south and west of the city in favor of a seven-mile passage to the lee of Robben Island. Clearing the massive wall that shields Cape Town Harbor, the westerly breeze stiffened, and we ran into a closely spaced three-foot northwesterly chop. At a comfortable 18 knots, the cat cut through it like butter. Things became more interesting a few miles out as a fat, five-foot southerly groundswell cleared the Cape’s shadow. The boat was now running into wind and combined swells meeting at right angles. The ride even on the flybridge became pretty wet and occasionally the boat’s elevated pilothouse met the combined waves with a smack. But she still felt solid as a rock belowdecks—no creaks, squeaks or groans, and with her 24.8-foot beam, she remained plenty stable. When a turn put her more parallel to the groundswell, the ride smoothed. Beneath a leaden sky, we reached the low-slung island’s lee shore. There, a quaint, barely inhabited village remains right next to the gloomy abandoned prison where Mandela did his time. O’Hanlon has seen plenty of rescues and spooky nights out here. One night at 2 a.m., he was posted up at the island’s former Governor’s house by the prison, “and I just hear pouring water outside of the back of the building,” he said. “It’s got these old sash windows open to the outside. I didn’t want to wake everyone else up, so I go out back and the noise is just gone. Go back inside and the closer I got to the back, the louder it got. So, I just went back to bed.”
Three weeks ago, O’Hanlon was called out here on a rescue, but no boat was found. Instead, they stumbled onto three nearly frozen lobster poachers. “The boat ran away and left the divers in the water,” he said. “These guys are the poor guys and I feel sorry for them. Those chaps are just trying to make a living. It’s the guys who organize the poaching cartels that need to be shot.”
The next several days were pure sensory overload. Rob took Steve Long and I on an unforgettable drive through Table Mountain National Park far out to the Cape Peninsula. The contrasts between the tony beachside community of Bakoven at the Park’s edge and the headlands of the mighty “Twelve Apostles” was otherworldly. It was Big Sur meets Switzerland with the turquoise water of Tortola 300 feet below. At the southerly end of a magnificent, miles-long sandy strand called Long Beach, we found a shoulder-high swell. But the wind was blowing so hard that the few surfers out were literally getting blown off the backs of the waves, so we gave it a pass.
The park proper presented a primeval coastal landscape that seemed 500 miles from Cape Town but was only 25. Baboon families strolled alongside the road, and sprightly antelope called Springbok—South Africa’s national animal—munched on wind-blasted grasses. “They do something called ‘pronking,’” Rob said. “They straighten their legs and leap two meters straight up in the air.”
Farther down the coast, we hiked down to one of Rob’s favorite secret surf spots and beheld an empty beach with towering dunes of squeaky white sand, a vast offshore kelp forest and greens and blues so vivid they hurt your eyes. At a quaint village called Simonstown lay a beach festooned with bus-sized boulders. There we found hundreds of roosting African Penguins. They’re about the size of mallard ducks—beautiful and highly endangered. They molt annually, and during this time, their fluffy feathers prevent them from hunting—or swimming their 13-mph top speed to escape predators. Thus, refuges like this are vital. To reach Rob’s favorite swimming hole, we were forced through a narrow rock passage past a trio of sunbathing birds. When I edged too close to the last one, it whipped its sharp beak around and gave my calf a nice enough nip to draw blood. Rob chuckled. “You’ve got a souvenir.”
The next day’s three-hour drive to Inverdoorn’s wine country was another jaw-dropping mashup of the most scenic vistas and valleys you’d find in the American West, but with troupes of baboons, springboks and the occasional sign warning of wild leopards.
We ultimately did survive the Inverdoorn lightning storm as Johannes expertly slip-slided a drenched crew of gawkers back towards the remote lodge. But the storm was wicked—and long. We awoke the next morning to learn that Peter had to organize a rescue helicopter to evacuate visitors at Inverdoorn’s more flooded remote reaches. With Reserve roads washed out and more storms likely, the call was made to return to Cape Town through the steep, wonderland peaks of Bainskloof Pass. But as we made our photo stops along the winding road, clouds even blacker than yesterday’s billowed in behind us. At the summit, we were all gobsmacked as another gust front—this one moving at perhaps 75 miles an hour—buried the mountain behind us like a tsunami. Snaking down the mountain ahead, Peter was fairly nonplussed until the storm swallowed us—and his badass Ford pickup—with sheets of wind and marbles of hail. “This,” he shouted, “is actually quite extraordinary.”
On our last day, we learned that the 40 powercat would simply not be ready for us to pick apart and sea trial. We’ve previously featured R&C’s 46 and 53PC’s in Power & Motoryacht, but I’d yet to take the helm of either. So, Rob and Peter roused my colleagues and me for a morning cruise. The weather was again overcast, but the light breeze and three-foot groundswell was manageable enough for us to blast around the west end of Cape Town and out beneath the Twelve Apostles and Table Mountain National Park at 20-plus knots. Driving the big Leopard 53 is a trip. Like any powercat, there’s essentially no bowrise, even when mashing full throttle from zero. The boat turns quickly and of course, she’s so wide and stable that a Seakeeper would be redundant. I had a blast. When it was Moser’s turn at the helm, I spotted a geyser of spray out to sea and hollered “thar she blows.” Just in time for Van Hemmen to swing his camera around, a huge white flecked fluke arced into the air. With that, the southern humpback took a deep dive—and was gone.
As a last hurrah, Rob and I scampered out to southern Cape Town’s Muizenberg beach to finally catch some waves. Muizenberg is an old resort town that reminded me of Newquay, Cornwall, Biarritz, France and San Onofre, California all at once. In front of multicolored beach huts that date back to the early 1900’s, a beautiful and mellow long groundswell was coursing through the blue water onto Muizenberg’s white sands. The perfectly shaped chest high peelers were ideal for our longboards and the waters were so warm I barely needed my wetsuit. Rob surfed with a casual waterman’s style and again shrugged when I motioned towards the swirling schools of baitfish that had appeared in the water just outside of us. I was pretty sure I saw a couple of splashes from hunting seals, but I never saw one directly. That is, until my very last wave. Paddling out, I made out the shape of a small seal in a wave’s face. The next wave revealed that not only was the seal floating perfectly still, but something appeared to have bitten it in half. I didn’t see any blood, but I paddled like hell for the next wave and kept quiet about the encounter to Rob as we walked back to the parking lot. If I had told him, his response would have likely been simple: “Welcome to South Africa.”
This article originally appeared in the March 2023 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.
Source: https://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/boats/extreme-elements-boatbuilding-in-cape-town-south-africa
