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HMS Pelorus (J291)

1943 shipsAlgerine-class minesweepers of the Royal NavyAlgerine-class minesweepers of the South African NavyMaritime incidents in 1994Ships built on the River Clyde
Ships sunk as artificial reefsShips sunk as dive sitesShipwrecks of the South African Atlantic coastSouth African heritage sitesUse British English from December 2016World War II minesweepers of the United Kingdom
HMS Pelorus 1943 IWM FL 10360
HMS Pelorus 1943 IWM FL 10360

HMS Pelorus (pennant number: J291) was an Algerine-class minesweeper built for the Royal Navy (RN) during World War II. Upon completion, the ship became the flotilla leader of the 7th Minesweeper Flotilla, clearing mines off the east coast of England. In June 1944, the flotilla was assigned to sweep one of the beaches during the Normandy landings until she struck a mine the following month. After her repairs were completed, Pelorus was reassigned to the English Channel and the 6th Minesweeping Flotilla. The flotilla was transferred to the Indian Ocean in 1945 and spent some time escorting convoys. They participated in Operation Collie, a bombardment of Japanese positions in the Nicobar Islands, in July and then swept the Strait of Malacca and the approaches to Singapore in August. After the war, she was sold to the South African Navy and renamed HMSAS Pietermaritzburg. The ship was later converted into a midshipmans' training ship during the early 1960s. She served as a barracks ship from 1968 to 1991 when Pietermaritzburg was listed for disposal. The ship was scuttled as an artificial reef off the South African coast in 1994.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article HMS Pelorus (J291) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

HMS Pelorus (J291)
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N -34.22 ° E 18.47 °
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7995 , The Boulders
Western Cape, South Africa
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HMS Pelorus 1943 IWM FL 10360
HMS Pelorus 1943 IWM FL 10360
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Boulders Beach
Boulders Beach

Boulders Beach is a sheltered beach made up of inlets between granite boulders, from which the name originated. It is located on the Cape Peninsula, in Simon's Town, a suburb of Cape Town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is also commonly known as Boulders Bay. It is a popular tourist spot because of a colony of African penguins which settled there in 1982. Boulders Beach forms part of the Table Mountain National Park. These African penguins are only found on the coastlines of Southern Africa (South Africa & Namibia). These penguins are currently on the verge of extinction. As a result, the penguins are under the protection of the Cape Nature Conservation. Although set in a residential area, it is one of the few sites where this vulnerable bird (Spheniscus demersus) can be observed at close range, wandering freely in a protected natural environment. From just two breeding pairs in 1982, the penguin colony has grown to about 3000 birds in recent years. This is partly due to the prohibition of commercial pelagic trawling in False Bay, which has increased the supply of sardines and anchovies, which form part of the penguins' diet. as well as the help from former SANDF naval officer, Van the Penguin Man Bordered mainly by indigenous bush above the high-water mark on the one side, and the clear water of False Bay on the other, the area comprises several small sheltered bays, partially enclosed by granite boulders that are 540 million years old. The most popular recreational spot is Boulders Beach, but the penguins are best viewed from Foxy Beach, where newly constructed boardwalks take visitors to within a few metres of the birds. It is also a famous swimming beach, although people are restricted to beaches adjacent to the penguin colony.

Cape Peninsula
Cape Peninsula

The Cape Peninsula (Afrikaans: Kaapse Skiereiland) is a generally mountainous peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean at the south-western extremity of the African continent. At the southern end of the peninsula are Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. On the northern end is Table Mountain, overlooking Table Bay and the city bowl of Cape Town, South Africa. The peninsula is 52 km long from Mouille point in the north to Cape Point in the south. The Peninsula has been an island on and off for the past 5 million years, as sea levels fell and rose with the ice age and interglacial global warming cycles of, particularly, the Pleistocene. The last time that the Peninsula was an island was about 1.5 million years ago. Soon afterwards it was joined to the mainland by the emergence from the sea of the sandy area now known as the Cape Flats. The towns and villages of the Cape Peninsula and Cape Flats, and the undeveloped land of the rest of the peninsula now form part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality. The Cape Peninsula is bounded to the north by Table Bay, to the west by the open Atlantic Ocean, and to the east by False Bay in the south and the Cape Flats in the north. The peninsula is mostly the mountainous remnant of very old durable sandstone formations with low dip, deposited unconformably on an ancient underlying granite peneplain. The climate is of the Mediterranean type, with predominantly winter rainfall and mild temperatures, and the natural vegetation is exceptionally diverse, with an unusually large number of endemic plant species for an area of this size, many of which are endangered, and threatened by human activity and encroachment, but are to some extent protected on the large part of the peninsula which is in the Table Mountain National Park. The coastal waters include a major seaport in Table Bay, and a marine protected area in the two adjacent but significantly different marine ecoregions, which meet at Cape Point. Most of the lower lying coastal land of the central and northern peninsula has been developed as first agricultural, and later urban areas. The rocky uplands have historically avoided development because of difficult access, poor soils and steep slopes, and more recently have been legally protected as being of high ecological importance, but are threatened by illegal land invasion and informal settlement.