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Two South African inventions

by Paul on Saturday, 10 January, 2009 4 Comments

Fishing from a dolos

Fishing from a dolos

South Africans are proud of their inventors. It’s almost guaranteed that if you’re a foreigner and find yourself talking with South African friends on a harbour pier, at some point someone from the group will mention that it was a South African who invented the dolos (the 20 ton pieces oddly-shaped pieces of concrete seen in the photo).

This bit of information will more often than not be followed up by the story of Ferdinand Chauvier’s world-first automatic pool cleaning system, the Kreepy Krauly and how the American company, Zodiac, allegedly stole the South African design, with their Baracuda pool cleaner.

Ironically, I’m South African and I own a Baracuda… which, much to my dismay, sucked all the water from my swimming pool during the night because I left the pump on backwash by mistake! Perhaps it’s the Gods of Invention that are trying to teach me a lesson about patriotism. :D

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  1. 1 Beverley
    Sunday, 11 January, 2009 at 09:29

    The dolos – now this is something we learnt about on our last visit when we stayed at the Table Bay Hotel.

    Very effective but not particularly ‘attractive’

  2. 2 Nancy
    Sunday, 11 January, 2009 at 10:42

    Invention is good – we need more of if. Sorry about the Baracuda…

  3. 3 Pule
    Wednesday, 14 January, 2009 at 01:00

    We definately need more invesntions Nancy. Check out some of South African investions on the following link http://www.southafrica.info/business/trends/innovations/inventions.htm

  4. 4 keegan
    Sunday, 18 January, 2009 at 12:19

    Another SA invention is the cats eye used on roads.

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