In 1870, Carel Stephan who was known as the "Corn King" due to the fact that he moved so much wheat from the West Coast to Cape Town, was having his hair cut at Stuttafords on Adderley St.

The Sicilian barber was telling him that cutting hair was his fall-back profession because actually he was a fisherman but there was not much call for fishermen in Table Bay at that time.  Carel took him up the West Coast to St. Helena Bay and asked him what he thought of the fishing prospects in these parts.

Francisco Carosini, for such was his name, cast an experienced eye on the sea, the thousands of Gannets and Cormorants, and said that he thought the prospects for fishing were enormous.  How right he was!

Having the world's largest upwellings off Stompneuse Point, where the South-Easter blows the surface water out to sea and water from below comes up bringing nutrients which feed the plankton which in turn feed the surface feeding (pelagic) fish, which in their turn feed the carnivorous fish, the West Coast is truly a fisherman's paradise.

Carosini was sent back to Spezzia, his village in Sicily and returned with many compatriots, among them the Violas, Carosinis, Dipolas, Fioravantes and many more. Francisco Carosini was Stephan's foreman for the rest of his life.

Thus the local fishing industry, which had been started by MacLachlan Fisheries (now St Helena Bay Fisheries) who took over JC Smit's licence in 20th October 1866 and subsequently sold out to Stephan in 1899,  was boosted by a chance encounter of Stephan and Carosini.  Chance favours a prepared mind.

Stephan prospered and ruled like a lord from an old French Barque called the Nerie, which had been wrecked at Rogge Bay in Cape Town in 1878.  This boat was bought and sailed to Rooibaai at Laaiplek, (then called The Loading Place) and served as Carel Stephan's headquarters.