Dick Manten, NSRI Vaal Dam station commander, said:
"At 12h27 (Monday, 25th June) NSRI Vaal Dam volunteer rescue duty crew went to assist Dries du Toit who accidentally ran his 25 foot Bayliner, 10 minutes into his cruise, onto the hard in a shallow section of the Vaal River after launching on Saturday afternoon (23rd June) from the Afrikaans Hengel Vereeniging Oord, 21 nautical miles from the NSRI rescue base at Manten Marina.
"At the time Mr. du Toit and his crew were unable to get their boat, which was well and truly hard aground, free despite their extensive efforts on Saturday afternoon and they called NSRI early on Saturday evening requesting assistance and plans were made, since all the crew were confirmed to be safe onboard, to send an NSRI team to help on Sunday morning.
"Unknown to Mr. du Toit and his crew the fateful tornado struck shortly after he had called for assistance on Saturday and only when they checked with the NSRI on Sunday morning, to find out what time the NSRI would be coming to help, was the first they had heard of the Tornado as the area that they were in was unaffected by the weather.
"Today our NSRI volunteer rescue duty crew towed my private boat Skin Ray and our NSRI rescue craft Harvey's Fiberglass which we launched on arrival and using about 400 meters of rope, and both of our boats, in very shallow water, we managed to eventually pull the casualty craft off the hard and once free they required no further assistance."
-ENDS-
Released by:
Craig Lambinon
Sea Rescue Communications
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