On 23 November 2003, the last of the SA Navy’s Daphne class submarines, SAS Assegaai (ex-Johanna van der Merwe) was paid off for the last time and destined for disposal along with her two sisters. However, with the scrapping of our first submarine, SAS Spear (ex-Maria van Riebeeck) that same year, a number of naval enthusiasts, both serving and retired, felt that she should be preserved as a museum vessel and campaigned for her retention.
As a result of their efforts, in 2005 the Naval Board approved her retention as the Navy’s first museum vessel and an annex of the Naval Museum under the conditions that it be done at no direct cost to the SA National Defence Force and carried out by volunteers who would raise funds to place it ashore where it could be used as an educational tool to promote the sciences amongst the youth as well as function as a museum exhibit.
An Assegaai Preservation Team consisting of volunteers under the auspices of the Naval Heritage Trust (NHT) was formed for this purpose. The Naval Heritage Trust is a registered Public Benefit Organization established in July 1994 with the primary objective being to generate an awareness of the South African Navy and to educate the general South African public about our naval heritage, culture and traditions.
Planning and fundraising to move the vessel ashore at the Naval Museum commenced, a major engineering challenge and very time consuming. Thus Navy Headquarters gave authority to the team of volunteers to temporarily...
