[imagesource:instagram/thewaterfrontduckco]

South Africa is getting its first amphibious vehicle tour, starting in Cape Town soon!

The fascinating vehicle transforms from a bus to a boat mid-journey, allowing passengers to experience all manners of getting around while exploring the beauty of the Mother City.

Keith Lindsay, the founder of The Waterfront Duck, told News24 that the company is busy clearing the last of the regulatory hurdles needed to make the part-land part-sea tour a reality.

Lindsay had been slaving away in the marketing and advertising industry when he decided SA needed a little something new. He said he first had the idea to launch an amphibious bus tour in Cape Town in 2008 after trying an amphibious vehicle tour in Boston.

He said he just had to wait until circumstances allowed him to make it happen…cut to four years later, with SA’s first real boatbus:

Image: The Waterfront Duck Co

Amphibious passenger vehicles, often called “ducks” today, got their start in World War 2. Back then, the US Army and Marine Corps created DUKWs – vehicles that could function both as boats and land transport – that were primarily used to move ammo and supplies from ships to beach supply points.

After the war, some of these vehicles found a new life by giving tours in waterside cities, including Boston, Singapore, Stockholm, and Salzburg.

The company has bought the vessel from a manufacturer in England, which is the safest albeit the most expensive, and will increase the fleet as demand ramps up.

“It has got a massive amount of safety features which you find in all modern tourist vessels,” said Lindsay.

Image: The Waterfront Duck Co

Otherwise, securing regulatory approval has proven to be the biggest challenge since “There is no such thing as amphibious legislation, really. It has to have qualifications in dual streams. One is water and the other is a road,” he said.

“We started with the water side. We thought that would be the most tricky. It turns out they were both tricky,” said Lindsay.

After a long wait and lots of paperwork, the licence for use of the vehicle on the water was awarded by the South African Maritime Safety Authority, and the National Regulator for Compulsory Standards awarded a licence for the vehicle to operate on the road.

But, they still need to complete the road certification process and get the “quacktains” (yes, that’s the official names of the driver/captains) to get their PDP licence for the road and a skipper’s licence for the water.

The company still has about two to three weeks of the regulatory process to jump through, and then quack quack, all aboard!

The official launch date for the amphibious passenger tours is 31 July. Head to the website to get your tickets. The roughly one-hour-long tour will be split between land and sea, going from Greenpoint along the Atlantic Seaboard, into the marina at the V&A Waterfront.

Lindsay said, “We are confident that is going to be a permanent part of the Cape Town landscape.”

[source:news24]