Cape Town superyacht marina boosts local shipbuilding
By Adrian Ephraim
STEEL is being cut in the Port of Cape Town for the V&A Waterfront’s R230 million Quay 7 project, and most of the money is staying local
There is a particular smell to a shipyard when the first plates go down. Hot steel, welding flux, and salt air blowing off the harbour filled the air. On Thursday, 16 July, that smell marked something bigger than a normal day’s work at Damen Shipyards Cape Town. It marked the start of construction of South Africa’s first marina specifically built for superyachts.
The V&A Waterfront and Damen held a keel-laying ceremony at the Damen yard in the Port of Cape Town to begin production of six floating pontoons for the Quay 7 Superyacht Marina, a R230 million development in the Victoria Basin. In shipbuilding tradition, the keel laying is a vessel’s birth certificate, the moment the structural backbone goes in and full-scale construction begins.
What is being built
The six pontoons are based on the Damen 3006 design. Each is 30 metres long and six metres wide, weighing around 48 tonnes before outfitting. Each one is fabricated in three sections, bottom, sides and deck, before being assembled, fitted out and launched.
Once installed at Quay 7, they will provide eight berths, six stern-in and two side-on, able to take vessels of up to 90 metres. Berths will offer water, electricity, fire and lifesaving equipment, bonded fuel supply and IT connectivity, with direct access to the Syncrolift and Robinson Dry Dock for repair and refit work. The pontoons will be finished with bamboo decking, bollards, fenders and shear fenders securing the structures to the quay wall alongside the new Cape Town EDITION hotel, which houses a 200 square metre concierge area for the marina.
Construction is roughly 45% complete. About 120 people are working on the project, including staff from nine local subcontractors. Practical completion is targeted for the end of October 2026, with an official opening planned for November.
A shipbuilder doing something new
Damen Shipyards Cape Town has built patrol vessels, research and supply vessels, dredgers and tugs. A marina is a different animal, and managing director Hermoine Manuel describes Quay 7 as the most technically advanced marina project the yard has taken on.
“This project is an example of international expertise combined with South African talent and local supplier capability, and it demonstrates that complex maritime infrastructure can be designed, procured, constructed and delivered to international standards right here in Cape Town,” Manuel says.
The hardest engineering problem has been below the waterline. The seabed anchoring system required specialist testing protocols to hold up in Cape Town’s marine conditions, and the team has relied on 3D modelling, digital scanning and underwater survey systems to get the submerged structures and services right.
Andre Blaine, executive for marine and industrial property at the V&A Waterfront, makes the point that the visible part of the build is the smaller part of the story. “The anchoring systems, the submerged structures, and the utility integration – these are infrastructure built to serve international maritime traffic for decades,” he says.
The local content number
For Western Cape suppliers, the number that matters is 76%. That is the share of procurement spend directed to local suppliers so far. Excluding Damen itself, local supplier spend sits at 35%.
Superyacht arrivals at the V&A have climbed steadily since 2009, reaching 35 vessels in the 2024/25 season, many of them staying for extended periods. Each visit pulls in fuel suppliers, provisioning companies, marine engineers, logistics providers, hospitality operators and marine contractors, with most of that spend landing in the local economy.
The design also answers the seasonality problem that sinks many marina business cases. Outside the superyacht season, the basin is intended to support commissioning and export staging for Cape Town’s catamaran builders, among them Robertson and Caine, Two Oceans Marine and Balance Catamarans. That gives the facility a job for twelve months of the year rather than four or five.
V&A Waterfront chief executive Graham Wood frames it as a positioning play. “Quay 7 will position the V&A Waterfront and Cape Town where they belong, on the global superyacht circuit, and create long-term economic opportunities for the marine services sector, local manufacturers and the broader ocean economy. Every weld brings that future closer,” he says.
The first superyachts are expected before the end of the year.
