|
Saldanha, Western Cape
Saldanha (), also known as Saldanha Bay, is a town of 21,636 people, located north of Cape Town on the northern shore of Saldanha Bay, in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Its situation as a natural sheltered harbour has led to development as a port for the export of iron ore from Sishen in the Northern Cape, which is transported on the Sishen–Saldanha railway line. The port is one of the largest exporting ports of ore in the whole of Africa, and it is able to handle ships as large as 200 000 tons deadweight. History 'Agoada de Saldanha' was the early Portuguese name for Table Bay, but later given to the present location by Joris van Spilbergen, meaning 'watering place of Saldanha'. Bartolomeu Dias was the first recorded European to set eyes on what is now Saldanha. Saldanha Bay is ultimately named after António de Saldanha, captain of a vessel in Albuquerque's fleet which visited South Africa in 1503. Port The port has handling facilities for both bulk iron or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Ocean; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini; and it encloses Lesotho. Covering an area of , the country has Demographics of South Africa, a population of over 64 million people. Pretoria is the administrative capital, while Cape Town, as the seat of Parliament of South Africa, Parliament, is the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein is regarded as the judicial capital. The largest, most populous city is Johannesburg, followed by Cape Town and Durban. Cradle of Humankind, Archaeological findings suggest that various hominid species existed in South Africa about 2.5 million years ago, and modern humans inhabited the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cape Town
Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest city by population, after Johannesburg, and the largest city in the Western Cape. The city is part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality (South Africa), metropolitan municipality. The city is known for Port of Cape Town, its harbour, its natural setting in the Cape Floristic Region, and for landmarks such as Table Mountain and Cape Point. In 2014, Cape Town was named the best place in the world to visit by ''The New York Times'', and was similarly ranked number one by ''The Daily Telegraph'' in both 2016 and 2023. Located on the shore of Table Bay, the City Bowl area of Cape Town, which contains its Cape Town CBD, central business district (CBD), is History of Cape Town, the oldest urban area in the Western Cape, with a signi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
VLCC
An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk transport of oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined crude oil from its point of extraction to refineries. Product tankers, generally much smaller, are designed to move refined products from refineries to points near consuming markets. Oil tankers are often classified by their size as well as their occupation. The size classes range from inland or coastal tankers of a few thousand metric tons of deadweight (DWT) to ultra-large crude carriers (ULCCs) of . Tankers move approximately of oil every year.UNCTAD 2006, p. 4. Second only to pipelines in terms of efficiency,Huber, 2001: 211. the average cost of transport of crude oil by tanker amounts to only US. Some specialized types of oil tankers have evolved. One of these is the naval replenishment oiler, a tanker which can fuel a moving vessel. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Draft (hull)
The draft or draught of a ship is a determined depth of the vessel below the waterline, measured vertically to its hull's lowest—its propellers, or keel, or other reference point. Draft varies according to the loaded condition of the ship. A deeper draft means the ship will have greater vertical depth below the waterline. Draft is used in under keel clearance calculations, where the draft is calculated with the available depth of water (from Electronic navigational charts) to ensure the ship can navigate safely, without grounding. Navigators can determine their draught by calculation or by visual observation (of the ship's painted load lines). Related terminology A ship's draft/draught is the "depth of the vessel below the waterline measured vertically to the lowest part of the hull, propellers, or other reference point". That is, the draft or draught is the maximum depth of any part of the vessel, including appendages such as rudders, propellers and drop keels if de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Afonso De Albuquerque
Afonso de Albuquerque, 1st Duke of Goa ( – 16 December 1515), was a Portuguese general, admiral, statesman and ''conquistador''. He served as viceroy of Portuguese India from 1509 to 1515, during which he expanded Portuguese influence across the Indian Ocean and built a reputation as a fierce and skilled military commander. Albuquerque advanced the three-fold Portuguese grand scheme of combating Islam, spreading Christianity, and securing the trade of spices by establishing a Portuguese Asian empire. Among his achievements, Albuquerque managed to conquer Goa and was the first European of the Renaissance to raid the Persian Gulf, and he led the first voyage by a European fleet into the Red Sea. He is generally considered a highly effective military commander, and "probably the greatest naval commander of the age", given his successful strategy of attempting to close all the Indian Ocean naval passages to the Atlantic, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and to the Pacific, transforming it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
António De Saldanha
António de Saldanha was a Castilian- Portuguese 16th-century captain. He was the first European to set anchor in what is now called Table Bay, South Africa, and made the first recorded ascent of Table Mountain.Mary Gunn, L. e. Codd, L. E. W. Codd. ''Botanical Exploration of Southern Africa: An Illustrated History of Early Botanical Literature on the Cape Flora : Biographical Accounts of the Leading Plant Collectors and Their Activities in Southern Africa from the Days of the East India Company Until Modern Times.'' CRC Press, 1981. p5-7. Background Chroniclers Gaspar Correia (p. 412) and Fernão Lopes de Castanheda (p. 157) identify António de Saldanha as a " Castilian nobleman" who arrived in Portugal around 1497, in the household service of the queen Maria of Aragon. His original Castilian name is unknown, 'Saldanha' possibly referring to the Castilian town of Saldaña, which may have been his place of origin. Expedition of 1503 Being a man of "some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bartolomeu Dias
Bartolomeu Dias ( – 29 May 1500) was a Portuguese mariner and explorer. In 1488, he became the first European navigator to round the Cape Agulhas, southern tip of Africa and to demonstrate that the most effective southward route for ships lies in the open ocean, well to the west of the African coast. His discoveries were later used by Vasco da Gama to establish a sea route between Europe and Asia. Early life Bartolomeu Dias was born around 1450 in the Faro District of Portugal. His family had a maritime background, and one of his ancestors, Dinis Dias, explored the African coast in the 1440s and discovered the Cap-Vert peninsula in today's Senegal in 1445. Tracing his biography is complicated by the existence of several contemporary Portuguese seafarers with the same name. In 1481, Dias accompanied an expedition, led by Diogo de Azambuja, to construct a fortress and trading post called São Jorge da Mina in the Gulf of Guinea. Indirect evidence also points to his possible pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joris Van Spilbergen
Joris van Spilbergen (1 November 1568 in Antwerp – 13 January 1620 in Bergen op Zoom) was a Dutch naval officer. His first major expedition was in 1596, when he sailed to Africa. He then left for Asia on 5 May 1601, from Veere, a seaport on the island of Walcheren in Zealand, in command of the fleet of the company of Balthazar de Moucheron (a trading company before the establishment of the VOC). His ships were the ''Ram'', ''Schaap'', and ''Lam''. Spilbergen met the king of Kandy (Sri Lanka) Vimala Dharma Suriya in 1602, and discussed the possibility of trade in cinnamon. In 1607, Spilbergen, onboard ''Aeolus'', was with Jacob van Heemskerk at the Battle of Gibraltar. In 1614, he sailed beyond the Strait of Magellan with an expedition of five ships. Despite the fact that the Twelve Years' Truce between Spain and the Dutch Republic was in force, he raided the Spanish settlements on the coast of Mexico and South America. He fought the Spanish at Callao, Acapulco and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Table Bay
Table Bay (Afrikaans: ''Tafelbaai'') is a natural bay on the Atlantic Ocean overlooked by Cape Town and is at the northern end of the Cape Peninsula, which stretches south to the Cape of Good Hope. It was named because it is dominated by the flat-topped Table Mountain. History Bartolomeu Dias was the first European to explore this region in 1486. The bay, although famous for centuries as a haven for ships, is actually a rather poor natural harbour and is exposed to storm waves from the northwest. Many sailing ships seeking refuge in the bay during the 17th and 18th centuries were driven ashore by winter storms. The Dutch colonists nevertheless persisted with their efforts on the shores of Table Bay, because good natural harbours along this coastline are almost non-existent. The best of them, Saldanha Bay, lacked fresh water. Simon's Bay was well protected from westerly winter storms and swells, but more exposed to summer southeasterly storms and difficult to access overland f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South Asia and Southeast Asia), and later with East Asia. The company gained control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent and Hong Kong. At its peak, the company was the largest corporation in the world by various measures and had its own armed forces in the form of the company's three presidency armies, totalling about 260,000 soldiers, twice the size of the British Army at certain times. Originally chartered as the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies," the company rose to account for half of the world's trade during the mid-1700s and early 1800s, particularly in basic commodities including cotton, silk, indigo dye, sugar, salt, spices, saltpetre, tea, and later, opium. The company also initiated the beginnings of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sishen–Saldanha Railway Line
The Sishen–Saldanha railway line, also known as the Ore Export Line (OREX), is an heavy-haul railway line in South Africa. It connects iron ore mines near Sishen mine, Sishen in the Northern Cape with the port at Saldanha Bay in the Western Cape. It is used primarily to transport iron ore (60 million tonnes per year) and does not carry passenger traffic. The Sishen–Saldanha line was built by Iscor Limited, Iscor, the then iron and steel parastatal, opening in 1976. In 1977 the line was transferred to Transnet Freight Rail, then known as ''South African Railways & Harbours'', and was electrified. A voltage of 50 kV AC was chosen instead of the usual 25 kV to haul heavier loads and allow greater distance between transformers. A single-track line with 10 crossing loops to allow trains travelling in opposite directions to pass was constructed. The number of crossing loops has increased to 19 to increase line capacity. From an altitude of at Sishen, the line climbs for befor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northern Cape
The Northern Cape ( ; ; ) is the largest and most sparsely populated Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up. Its capital is Kimberley, South Africa, Kimberley. It includes the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park, part of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park and an Transboundary Protected Area, international park shared with Botswana. It also includes the Augrabies Falls and the diamond mining regions in Kimberley and Alexander Bay, Northern Cape, Alexander Bay. The Namaqualand region in the west is famous for its Dimorphotheca sinuata, Namaqualand daisies. The southern towns of De Aar and Colesberg found within the Great Karoo are major transport nodes between Johannesburg, Cape Town and Gqeberha. Kuruman can be found in the north-east and is known as a Mission (station), mission station. It is also well known for its artesian spring and Eye of Kuruman. The Orange River flows through the province, forming the borders ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
