Victoria Mxenge, the third and last of the three inshore environ-mental protection vessels, is being launched in September 2005.

In May 2002, the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism placed orders for the construction of one 83 m offshore and three 47 m inshore fisheries and environmental protection vessels. A South African company, Farocean Marine (Pty) Ltd of Cape Town built the three inshore vessels, which were designed by Damen Shipyards of Gorinchem, in the Netherlands.

Victoria Mxenge and her two sister ships will carry 12 crew and three fishery inspectors. They are 47 m in length, have a beam of 8 m and a range of 3 500 nautical miles at a speed of 15 knots. They are capable of remaining at sea for 14 days. In addition to the fishery protection duties, the vessels are also equipped to conduct oil spill countermeasure operations. The vessels are further equipped for search and rescue work, fire fighting and limited towing duties. All three ships are certified for operations up to 200 nautical miles from the shore. Although based in Cape Town, all three vessels will be deployed around the South Africa coastline and will do tours of duty at various ports for several months at a time. They will monitor a wide variety of resources, including rock lobster, abalone, line fish and squid, and will also carry out inspections of the demersal and pelagic fleets. In addition, they are capable of operating throughout the SADCregion and will play a significant role in regional compliance initiatives.

Construction of all three inshore vessels have taking place indoors on the Cape Town yard, which has greatly enhanced quality of workmanship. The keel for this vessel was laid in June 2004. The steel hull was constructed in a purpose-built jig, while the aluminium superstructure was prefabricated prior to installation. The ship was taken from the shed on 31 August 2005 and was launched via the local synchrolift two days later. Essentially complete, all that remained to be done was the final alignments and commissioning of all the pre-installed systems. Builders and

Fisheries Protection Vessel

owners sea trials will be completed during September and the ship is to be officially named and handed over on 23 September 2005. She will undertake her first inspection voyage immediately afterwards.

The ship is powered by two MTU 16V 4000 engines of 2720 kW each, driving two Wartsila Lips variable pitch propellers. On seatrials a speed of 25 knots was attained. To increase manoeuvrability, there is a 75 kW transverse bow thruster. Electrical power is via two 180 kW generator sets. The Engine room is unmanned and the engineers on duty stand their watch in the wheelhouse, assisted by a locally developed machinery control and alarm system. Bridge equipment includes two Arpa radars, an ECDIS chart system, differential GPS, a full GMDSS communication system and the standard array of navigation aids.

The Bridge

The Victoria Mxenge on patrol

An outside view of the Bridge

Department:Agriculture, Forestry and FisheriesREPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

agriculture,forestry & fisheries

For any further information please contact:

Department of Agriculture, Forestry and FisheriesBranch: Fisheries ManagementPrivate Bag X2,Rogge Bay 8012Cape TownTel. (021) 402 3911Fax. (021) 402 3660

Website: www.daff.gov.za

After completing her training she worked in the Umlazi clinic and lived in Umlazi, near Durban. She studied for her Public Health Certificate as a full time student at Edendale Technical College in 1973.

While at Edendale, in 1974 Victoria Mxenge registered for a B. Proc. Degree with the University of South Africa (UNISA). She graduated in 1981 and was articled to her husband’s legal firm. She was admitted as an attorney in 1981.

Mxenge’s parents were not politically active. Her first contact with political ideas was during her year at Healdtown. While doing her nursing diploma at Lovedale, Mxenge attended political meetings at the nearby Fort Hare University. Following her marriage to Griffiths Mxenge she played largely a supportive role in his political and trade union activities. However, their lives were repeatedly affected by her husband’s bannings, detentions and imprisonment. Griffiths and Victoria Mxenge had two sons - Mbasa and Viwe and a daughter Namhla.

On 19 November 1981 Griffiths Mxenge was found murdered. Victoria Mxenge identified the mutilated body of her husband at the government mortuary after having spent a sleepless night waiting for him to return home. The brutal murder of her husband brought Mxenge into direct confrontation with the state. She opposed Police General Johan Coetzee’s contention that her husband was assassinated by his own organisation, the ANC. She not only refuted this claim, she pledged that she would leave no stone unturned until the perpetrators of the crime were brought to book.

Victoria Mxenge was left to continue the legal practise which had been handling the bulk of political cases in Natal, as well as many others in the rest of South Africa including the trial of Paramount Chief Sabata Dalindyebo (Transkei), the Mdluli and Mohapi cases and the Bethal PAC trial. After the death of her husband she played a more prominent role in the struggle for liberation. In the legal sphere she was rising into prominence. She successfully defended students who were unfairly treated by the Department of Education and Training’s examination section. She was a member of the defence team that was to represent the UDF and Natal Indian Congress activists in the treason trial in the Pietermaritzburg Supreme Court.

She died before the trial. In July 1985 Mxenge was attacked by four men in the driveway of her home in Umlazi, Durban. She was stabbed and shot at, shortly after disembarking from a family friend’s vehicle.

In 1987 a Durban magistrate refused a formal inquest into Victoria Mxenge’s death ruling ‘she had died of head injuries and has been murdered by person or persons unknown’.

Sources-Gastrow, S; Who's who in South African Politics; 1986; Sigma Press, PretoriaSonderling, NE; New Dictionary of South African Biography Vol II; 1999; Vista University, Pretoriahttp://www.jocelync.com/hvpress/pages/mxenge_psd.htmhttp://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/people/mxenge-v.htm

The after part of the Wheelhouse is used by the fishery inspectors as an Operations Room. The core of the surveillance system is a Vistar 350 infra-red and low-light camera, used in conjunction with a slave radar display in the Operations Room. Other surveillance systems are still under development. The 7.5 m inspection boat, which was locally constructed to double as the SOLAS Rescue boat, has an inboard diesel driving a water jet. Launching is via a Vestdavit over the starboard quarter.

Victoria Mxenge (1942 - 1985)

This year, 2005, marks the twentieth anniversary of the brutal murder of Victoria Mxenge, an outstanding and exemplary freedom fighter whose life was cut short by apartheid security forces.

Mxenge’s brutal murder at the hand of assassins - just four year after her husband, Griffith Mxenge , was murdered by a Vlakplaas apartheid hit-squad - stand out as one of the most chilling episodes in the dark history of apartheid repression. Her death shocked a nation already accustomed to the most brutal state violence and contributed, as believed to have been planned, to an escalation of political violence in the then Natal province where she lived after she got married.

Victoria Mxenge was born to Wilmot Gosa and Dorothy Nobatu Ntebe in Tamara Location of King William’s Town on 1 January 1942. She was the second of four children to parents who were both teachers.

On 23 November 1964 she married Griffiths Mlungisi Mxenge. He was at the time of their marriage studying for his LL.B at Natal University so Victoria Mxenge moved from Alice in the Eastern Cape where she was a nurse and moved to Durban where she undertook her midwifery training at King Edward VII Hospital.

The Mess

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