Agulhas stranding calls to mind the history of the Western Knight

TECHNOLOGY has made sea transport safer but the stranding of the Safmarine Agulhas near East London harbour last month has shown once again that ships are as vulnerable as ever to the capriciousness of nature.

Images of containers being offloaded from the stranded vessel over the past few weeks were similar in many ways to the wreck of the Western Knight that ran aground on the rocks between the Willows and Schoenmakerskop, west of Port Elizabeth on April 8, 1929.