During the winter of 2011, in preparation for her 70th birthday, the Allen Gardiner was closed down for six months for a million rand refit and rebuild. She was lifted out of the water at the SA Navy dockyard at Salisbury Island and given an almost total rebuild. Boatbuilders with skills pertaining to wooden craft are extremely scarce, and three local craftsmen from Cape Town were flown to Durban and accommodated there for four months. Most of the hull planking above the water line and the decks themselves were stripped. Some of the stringers were replaced, others strengthened. All the metal fasteners were replaced. The watertight bulkheads were all removed. The Allen Gardiner was a bare skeleton in the dockyard. New watertight bulkheads were manufactured and installed, and new planking and decking fitted. In addition to the rebuild, the galley has been totally refurbished, as has deck seating and the dining saloon. So not only does she look stunning externally, the interior is also first rate.

The Allen Gardiner is now in better condition than when she was originally built seventy years ago

The Allen Gardiner was built in 1942 by the Miami Shipbuilding Corporation at Miami in Florida USA. She is 63 feet long, over 46 tons gross register and is an historic wooden vessel. She is one of twenty similar boats ordered by the South African Air Force during World War II. These boats were used as air/sea rescue launches and became commonly known as “crash boats”. They were responsible for saving the lives of over 600 survivors from the 153 ships sunk by German U-boats and surface craft off the South African coast during the war. They were built as high speed launches, capable of planing, like a ski boat, with the stern in the water and the bow lifted. With four 500 horsepower engines in tandem driving two propellers, these boats were capable of a maximum of 42 knots, which is about 75 kilometres per hour.

With a maximum of 45 passengers on our cruises, there is plenty of space, both on deck and in the elegant dining saloon.

She is named for Captain Allen F. Gardiner, Royal Navy, who came to Port Natal in 1835 as a missionary. It was his intention to convert the Zulus to Christianity, but Dingaan was only interested in guns. Disappointed, he returned to Port Natal, which was roughly where Addington is today, but was persuaded by the settlers to open a mission station high on the Ridge. There is an Allen Gardiner Park on Ridge Road on the Berea, to which he gave that name, from a quotation from Chapter 17 of the Acts of the Apostles in the Bible. It refers to St Paul’s travels and missionary work in Greece. After St Paul had been rejected by the people of Thessalonica, he journeyed on to Berea, where he was given a warm welcome.
Allen Gardiner was also responsible for calling the first public meeting at Port Natal, to which 17 residents – almost the entire population at that time - attended. At that meeting they planned out a new township, roughly where the City Hall and Post Office are today, and named it D'Urban for the then Governor of the Cape, Sir Benjamin D’Urban.