Page 31 - Bulletin 22 2019

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On 17 July 1862 the Johanna Wagner, a Prussian barque commanded by Capt. Kemple, was

wrecked at Strandfontein (nearer to Muizenberg) during a voyage from Batavia to
Amsterdam. She carried a cargo of sugar, gall nuts, India rubber, tobacco and tin. (Fig.1.31.)

Mike walker has given an interesting account of the wrecking and salvage of lives in his
latest book Ships Wrecks of the Deep South.

In 1983 local divers Brian Clarke and Tubby Gericke decided to excavate this wreck. They
were well-known diving pioneers in the Cape during the 1970s and 80s and had been most

successful in the recovery of tin from the different wrecks along the coast. They researched

many of the wrecks in the Archives of Black Squires in the UK and on their return to Cape
Town followed up on their research.

The Johanna Wagner had settled on bed-rock 3 m. below the sand in the breaker zone,
making it an extremely difficult salvage position. There were few limited spells of calm

weather to access her position and a blower would be required to displace the sand. Brian

commissioned another salvage operator, Charlie Shapiro, who had already had experience
with a blower and had successfully salvaged the valuable cargo of silver from the wreck of

the Johanna off Die Dam – a little east of Quoin Point.

They began their salvage attempt in the winter of 1983. Extensive sand was displaced from

the top of the wreck in dangerous surf conditions. The blower had to operate continuously to

stop the displaced sand moving back. Much of the various cargo could be seen, but they
found no sign of tin. This was probably due to its being placed at the bottom of the hold as

ballast, so in all likelihood it still lay beneath the cargo. (Fig. 1.32.)

It was obvious that Charlie’s blower was not strong enough to handle the surf conditions and

so Brian decided to approach harry Dilley of Simon’s Town, who had a much larger boat

with a very powerful propeller wash. Harry agreed to try Brian’s next attempt using his boat
Zest. Brian designed a deflector dome which would mount to the back of the Zest. It was

designed to deflect the prop wash downward so as to displace the sand below. While the plan
worked well the power of the prop. wash was so great that it caused the stern of the boat to

vibrate, to the extent that Harry was concerned that he might lose his transom. Zest was one
of the wartime wooden hulled crashboats and quite old by that time.

Ideally, Brian needed a steel hulled vessel of similar output. Unfortunately, the operation had

to be aborted and the mystery of the missing tin remains.