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Women icons protect the seas
18/06/2004 12:31 - (SA)
Johannesburg - Four new vessels to protect marine resources will be named after Sarah Baartman and three other South African women icons, the environment department said on Friday.
The first of the fishery and environmental protection vessels, the Sarah Baartman, has entered her final stages of preparation before her delivery in December, the department said, adding that all went well when she was placed into the Danube by her shipbuilders in Romania last week.
"This vessel will put us right at the top of fisheries protection capacity in the world. We cannot wait to get her operational," said Environmental Affairs director-general Horst Kleinschmidt in a statement.
The vessel has an overall length of 83m and will carry a crew of 29, including seven Fishery Control Officers and four cadet officers.
It has a range of 7 500 nautical miles at 15 knots, a chase speed in excess of 20 knots and can remain at sea for up to 45 days. She also has a helicopter deck capable of handling and refuelling an Oryx helicopter, a small hospital and facilities for accommodating accident survivors.
The ship is certified to operate internationally and is expected to play a key role in the protection of living marine resources around Marion and Prince Edward Islands.
The remaining three 47m vessels are being built in Cape Town by Farocean Marine. The first hull, to be named Lilian Ngoyi, the African National Congress' first female national executive committee member and a leader of the famous 1956 women's anti-pass march, is scheduled for launching in late September and will be handed over in November.
Sarah Baartman was a Cape Town woman taken to Europe in the early 1800s to be exhibited in a freak show as the "Hottentot Venus." Her remains, which had been kept in a bottle in Paris, were returned to South Africa in 2002 after years of negotiations with the French government, and reburied in Hankey in the Gamtoos valley.
The name of journalist and anti-apartheid activist Ruth First, who was assassinated by a letter bomb in Mozambique will be carried on the third vessel and midwife turned human rights lawyer Victoria Mxenge's name will be borne on the fourth.
- SAPA
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