During the 15 month period from January 2017 to April 2018, Port Elizabeth’s NSRI Station 6 responded to 18 in-shore incidents between Cape Recife and Maitlands River Mouth.
These incidents included:
- 7 boating related incidents
- 5 Drowning in Progress incidents
- 4 Diving related incidents
- 1 Entrapment on rocks
- 1 Whale disentanglement
These calls have involved 31 casualties and 5 deaths.
It takes a minimum of 20 minutes to respond to Cape Recife by sea from the Rescue Base in the Port of Port Elizabeth in fair conditions, and even longer if NSRI need to tow their small boat to the launch spot at Noordhoek Ski-Boat Club (this being the only recognised launch spot west of Algoa Bay until Jeffreys Bay, home of NSRI Station 37, some 75km away) – a long time for those in distress to wait for help.
Our beautiful coastline from Cape Recife to the West consists of rocky shores and beaches that are mostly inaccessible to vehicles and is widely utilised by:
- Boaters
- Scuba Divers
- Spear Fisherman
- Rock and Surf Anglers
- Swimmers
- Paddlers
- Surfers
- Kite Surfers
- Para-gliders
- and 1000’s of folk who just love relaxing along the waters edge.
In an attempt to reduce the response time it is the NSRI’s intention to open an Auxillary Rescue Station at the Noordhoek Ski-Boat Club who have kindly agreed to provide a Boat Shed and put their Radio Control Room and other facilities at the disposal of teh NSRI whenever required.
This Auxillary Station would initially be manned during emergencies by existing Station 6 crew and would house a new generation NSRI Jetski.
This small craft is ideal to operate around shallow rocky shores and in surf conditions, manned by two crew and with the capacity to carry two casualties on its third seat and rescue sledge,
Equipped with a medical jump-bag it would be able to provide initial medical assistance to those in need and is even powerful enough to tow small boats out of dangerous situations thereby being able to stabilise incidents whilst the larger rescue boats respond from the harbour.
To achieve this the NSRI need the help of the citizens of Nelson Mandela Bay.
The budget for this project is R 450 000.00 including the Jetski,sledge, trailer, launch dolly, radio’s, rescue equipment, safety equipment etc., which has already been kick started with pledges of close to R100 000.00!
If you would like to support this project donations can be made to:
National Sea Rescue Institute
ABSA, Heerengracht
Branch code: 506 009
Account number: 1382480607
Please include your contact number as a reference (so that we can thank you and provide a tax certificate where applicable) plus “6A” to indicate which project you are donating to.
Enquiries can be directed to the Station 6 Station Commander Ian Gray: 082 990 0828
Alan Straton
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