Navy Festival - Simon's Town
Date: 24 March 2006
Ahoy Maties!
The SA Navy held its annual SA Navy Festival at Simon's Town from Friday 24 March to Sunday 26 March 2006.
As an aviation enthusiast with an interest in the military, I'm also very interested in the Navy, so I made my way to Simon's Town on the Saturday. Well, shiver me timbers! I had so much fun that I'd thought I'd share my experience with the other landlubbers out there ;-)
During the Festival, the public were encouraged to visit the large naval dockyard and view the naval vessels on display. These ranged from the small Lima class boats to the large Valour Class Frigates (now no longer called Corvettes). Unfortunately, the Navy's largest ship, the SAS Drakensberg, was not able to participate as she was escorting the first of the three new Type 209 submarines home (and subsequently rerouted to France to bring back a rotor for the Koeberg nuclear power station).
The Festival started off with the Navy performing a right of passage parade through Simon's Town. Visitors could then board the various ships and watch numerous displays, such dog shows, gun runs, fire fighting exercises, cannon firings, diving demonstrations, etc. A Night Gunnery Shoot was held on the Saturday night. A popular attraction was the cruise around the dockyard aboard one of three Navy tugboats.
In addition to the ships, some smaller static displays on weapons, recruitment, the Reserve Force and the SA Police Services were also available.
Traditional SAN commentator Andrew Blake was assisted by Brian Emmanis of airshow fame, this time looking down at water instead of up in the air!
The SAAF contributed with a performance by the Silver Falcons on the Saturday, but there was no other aviation related display. Not even an Alouette or Oryx on the back of a Frigate, nor an air-sea rescue exercise.
Despite that, this landlubber enjoyed himself, making use of the time and facilities to inspect many of the patrol and anti-mine ships that have been taken out of service.
I did not intend to write a report on the Festival, but herewith a few photos of what our water-borne colleagues get up to.
