Ah King Slipway (3rd location) [c.1955-2002] | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

Ah King Slipway (3rd location) [c.1955-2002]

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Submitted by David on Wed, 2010-08-18 21:57
Current condition: 
Demolished / No longer exists
Date Place completed: 
c.1955-01-01 (Year, Month, Day are approximate)
Date Place demolished: 
2002-06-24

Also spelled "A. King".

I've given a tentative opening date of 1955. It appears on a map dated 1958 (Plate 7-3, Mapping Hong) as a little corner of land that would have appeared as part of the reclamation for Victoria Park, which finished in the mid 1950s.

I've also noted that this was at least the second location of the slipway, as other references to it date back to at least 1905. I'm not sure if the previous location was very close to this one (eg just behind the reclamation on the previous shoreline), or further round towards North Point.

We have a much clearer idea of the closing date:

The final eviction notice was posted onto the gates last week; be out by the 24 of June - or else.

That comes from an interesting thread by someone who found an old wooden yacht in the soon-to-be-closed Ah King boatyard. Read about their efforts to make it seaworthy and get it out to safety before the yard was closed, and catch some other snippets of HK History along the way. There's even a guest appearance by Andrew Craig-Bennett!

If you know what finally happened to Jerry Sousa and his new boat, please could you leave a comment below? Unfortunately the last comment from Jerry about the project was in 2002.

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Comments

Submitted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on Sun, 2010-08-22 06:26.

Funnily enough I got an email from Jerry Sousa just last week - he is still in HK, so I will point him in this direction without further ado!

Submitted by David on Mon, 2010-08-23 21:14.

Andrew, that's a happy coincidence!

Jerry, if you read this, please could you let us know the end of the story about the boat you'd rescued. And is there anywhere we can see photos of how it's turned out?

You also mentioned Ah Kwun's historical documents & memories. Again if they've made it out on to the web somewhere, please let us know the address.

We traced a previous location of the shipyard to Wanchai. That was on what's now Johnston Road. It would have moved when the seafront was reclaimed. More about that over here.

Regards, David

Submitted by David on Sun, 2014-03-16 19:15.

I've updated the title to say this was the third location of the boatyard. The second location was a short distance south of here, see: http://gwulo.com/node/19247

Submitted by Derek Sloan on Tue, 2019-03-12 19:56.

I used to go to Ah King Slipway in the 60's when it was at the  East end of the Typhoon shelter in Causeway bay always an interesting place. There was a big shed which had a load of ex Army BSA M21 motorbikes. There was also some crates which had little fibreglas water scooter boats with a small inboard two stroke engine. I later learned that these had in fact been manufactured in Englad by the famous Vincent motorcycle company. They must have been quite rare and I often wondered whatever had happened to them.