For the sake of completeness I feel that I should provide directions to one other “slipway” on the Cape Peninsula, suitable for small craft launching. Kommetjie Boat Club has a large, spacious paved parking area for vehicles and trailers, but the slipway isn’t tarred. Only boats samller than 5.5 metres can launch here.
You must drive your boat onto the beach, launch it, turn the car around on the beach to drive it off, and turn the boat around in the small launching basin in order to drive it out of a narrow channel bounded by rocks and kelp. It isn’t suitable for launching at low tides, and as there is nowhere to tie the boat up, one needs an assistant in the vehicle to handle that side of things.
However, during crayfish season this is an extremely popular launch site. If you plan to launch there out of season you need to call first so that someone can open the boom for you.
How to get there
If you have a GPS, put in the intersection of Beach Road and Van der Horst Avenue, Kommetjie. The parking for the boat club is right there.
If you don’t have a GPS:
- Get thee to Kommetjie.
- From Cape Town, this would entail driving all the way to the end of the M3 and then over Ou Kaapse Weg.
- From Hout Bay, come along Chapmans Peak Drive and continue straight until a stop street at the bottom of Ou Kaapse Weg. Turn right here.
- At the bottom of Ou Kaapse Weg go through the first traffic light (labelled Sun Valley), unless you’re planning to come and visit us.
- At the next traffic light, turn right into Kommetjie Road.
- Follow it until it curves south, and at the convenience store turn right into Van Imhoff Way.
- Van Imhoff becomes Beach Road – follow it to the right.
- Drive past Die Kom and soon on your left you will see the parking area for the launch site.
Here’s a map showing the parking area, and just above it the beach that you launch from. The channel to get to the open sea is visible leading off the beach, as are vehicle tracks on the beach.
There’s a little bit of information about the history of the Kommetjie Boat Club on this page, two thirds of the way down.
