The Waterfront Canal is a navigable waterway linking Cape Town’s commercial Foreshore district to the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront. In 1992 PRDW was appointed by the V & Waterfront company to conduct a feasibility study.
PRDW established the basic parameters for the canal in terms of geometry, water quality and navigability. Since then, construction has proceeded in stages, in parallel with development of the adjacent land.
The upper reaches of the canal, from the International Convention Centre, have water depth and headroom appropriate to water taxis. The downstream section, within the V&A Marina, has depths up to 3 metres to allow passage for yachts of up to 15m in length. Adjacent to the Two Oceans Aquarium, a boat lock is being constructed to enable boats to transfer between the canal and the tidal marina basin. Design of all the canal works has been undertaken by PRDW, with the layout determined in collaboration with architects and urban planners.
The canal walls in the Waterfront section of the canal are founded on bed rock and the canal bed has been sealed with grout and a fibre reinforced gunite layer. The Roggebaai portion of the canal, extending from the Convention Centre to the V&A Waterfront, was completed in 2003. As this section is founded on marine reclamation a different approach has been taken to the design of the canal bed which will be sealed using a geomembrane.
Water for the canal system is pumped from ducts that were built in the 1930’s to supply cooling water to the Table Bay Power Station, which has since been demolished. A new pump station with three submersible pumps has been constructed directly over the ducts and delivers up to 750 litre/sec of seawater into the canal. This ensures that the water body can be completely replenished in as little as two days to maintain the required water quality.
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