[Aktungbby]

the German Task Group, in the words of its Commander, Captain Andreas Seidel, “arrived in order to continue the trusted South African/German cooperation at sea.”

Well nothing goes outta style: It's what really kicked off the 20th century greatest arms race and ultimately "In January 1900, British cruisers on patrol detained three German mail steamers off the coast of Africa to search them, suspecting them of carrying materiel to the Boers. Although the British quickly apologized, the Germans were outraged, and Admiral von Tirpitz took advantage of the anger to introduce a new naval bill, which passed through the Reichstag with very little opposition on June 20 of that year. This law doubled the size of the fleet from 19 to 38 battleships; two flagships, four battle squadrons of eight battleships each, and four reserve battleships were to be constructed over seventeen years, from 1901 to 1917. This law made clear that not only was the German Navy to be a powerful battle fleet instead of a coastal defence force (in the process turning Germany into the second-strongest naval power in the world), but that the primary opponent of this enlarged fleet was to be the United Kingdom."[wiki] What's one little fishing boat to all that!