The decision to open the SAS Assegaai as an SA Naval Museum exhibit over the year-end holiday season was more than justified in visitor and guide learning curve terms.
The team behind the 21-year project, which started when the decommissioned SAS Assegaai (SAS 99) became a museum exhibit while moored alongside, has come full circle with the suitably cradled submarine now at Cole Point. The need to move her was taken up by a group of former SA Navy (SAN) officers under the auspices of the Naval Heritage Trust South Africa.
Fundraising was a major component of the project, culminating in the July 2024 move of the 860 ton submarine to her final berth at Cole Point. The French-built Daphne class submarine was moved 350 metres on a specially built lifting structure.
Assegaai project team member Digby Thomson told defenceWeb the submarine project is to all intents and purposes, complete. “She was handed to the Naval Museum by the Naval Heritage Trust and the Assegaai Museum Company ahead of a soft opening” in mid-December.
Another project team member said the decision to open in peak holiday season on a trial basis “gave us lots to learn as we had capacity crowds for most of the time”.
With boat tours limited to 10 people at a time it made for a maximum of 180 visitors a day. By the time the December break ended the Assegaai visitor tally was close to four thousand.
Comments in the Assegaai visitor’s book are all congratulatory and supportive. Some read “Exceptional”, “Amazing”, “Awesome experience” and “Fascinating”.
With holidaymakers gone, schools are next on the visitor target list while work continues on the torpedo display areas and still to be delivered submarine battery cell. Work is also underway on an Assegaai donor board – a pressure ring cut from the French submarine Galathée, also a Daphne Class boat. The French boat collided with another of the three SAN Daphnes – SAS Maria van Riebeeck (S97 – renamed SAS Spear) – off Toulon in August 1970.
All Assegaai donors and sponsors – including those who gave in kind and of their time – will be on the board.
