Weaver / Ingram Into a Raging Sea

Great South African Rescues
1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-1-86842-729-1
Verlag: Jonathan Ball
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 256 Seiten

The waters off South Africa's coastline are regarded as some of the most dangerous on earth. Sudden changes in weather, rip currents and freak waves all play their part in putting humans in peril, which sometimes ends in tragedy. No matter the danger, however, the brave volunteers of the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) are always willing to risk their lives to save others. Setting out, often in dirty weather and in dark and icy conditions, they do their utmost to bring victims back safely. Into a Raging Sea is a collection of daring rescues filled with drama and danger. From burning ships to shark encounters and sinking trawlers, these are the stories of man's constant battle with the sea.

TONY WEAVER is a veteran journalist, and former Assistant Editor of the Cape Times. He is a long-time fan and friend of the NSRI.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weaver, Tony

Ingram, Andrew

Leseproben

1 In the beginning

Andrew Ingram and Tony Weaver

The Overberg and Southern Cape coast, stretching from the eastern tip of False Bay at Cape Hangklip all the way to Mossel Bay and Knysna, is home to some of South Africa’s richest fishing grounds. It is also one of the most dangerous stretches of coastline in the world.

These days, fishermen and other ocean users can use the internet to call up an array of weather websites and apps that can tell them what the swell and wind will be doing a week in advance – WindGURU, Yr.no, South African Weather Service, Wavescape, the list goes on. The information is remarkably accurate, as supercomputers the world over process data from weather stations and satellites and use complex algorithms to pinpoint almost to the minute when the weather is likely to turn nasty, or when the swell is going to pitch from a benign and gentle ripple to an out-of-control monster.

It wasn’t like that in the old days. First thing every morning, ocean users would tap their barometers to see if the needle was rising or falling. Down here on the southern tip of Africa, a rising barometer meant that a high-pressure system and south to southeasterly winds were on the way. A falling barometer meant that westerly to northwesterly cold-front conditions were approaching, and a rapidly falling barometer meant that a storm front was approaching with rain, big winds and, most likely, big swells.

Experienced older hands could read a lot more into that slight movement of the needle. For surfers, a falling barometer and a cold front meant bigger, more powerful waves. For fishermen, the wind direction made all the difference in terms of bringing warmer water inshore, and with it shoals of sought-after gamefish such as yellowtail and katonkel (king mackerel or couta).

In 1966, Gerhard Dreyer was a professional fisherman working out of Still Bay: ‘I was there for a good few years. We had small boats, skuitjies; they were not big boats, they were all open boats with inboard diesel engines, and that’s how we caught our fish. My boat was called Bakvissie.’

It had not been a good year. ‘The sea can get very rough off Still Bay, and that year, 1966, in January, one night a boat came in, and about 50 or 60 metres from the harbour it capsized. Six men drowned and three came out alive. That was late at night.

‘The fishing was very bad that year for January, February, March. My men were crying. Then one morning, it was 12 April 1966, we went out at three or four o’clock in the morning to the Jongensklip side. We anchored off Jongensklip, and that day at last the fish were really, really biting. As fast as you could pull your line in, you caught them.’

Gerhard ran the boat back to Still Bay to offload their catch, and, with conditions still fine, they headed back out again.

‘Later, at about four or five o’clock, old Willem Beuker said to me, “There’s a wind dog coming.” I didn’t know what he meant, then he said, “There is a terrible storm on the way.” So I said we must go home, but my crew talked me out of it. That was the mistake I made. They said they had had a very difficult time, and that we must turn around and carry on catching.

‘And I listened to them.’

Gerhard took the boat back to the place where they had cleaned up the fish that morning, and earlier in the afternoon, and anchored off Jongensklip, away from three other local boats, Charmaine, Seabird and Taljaard.

‘I wasn’t wearing a watch, but I would guess that at about nine in the evening, the current changed direction. The bow was facing more or less west, and then the current turned due east so that the sea was now coming constantly from the side of the boat.

‘And then came the wind, and terrifying waves, and I said, “Pull up the anchor!”, and we headed out into the deep sea, and I said to the men, “Throw everything in the boat overboard, throw everything off and pump water.” They got angry with me, they didn’t want to throw the fish overboard. I said to them, “Listen to me!”

‘And so they threw everything overboard, everything, the fish, the lines, everything, until it was just us on the boat. That’s what saved us.’

It was still eight hours until dawn.

The swell was terrifying, running at up to 15 m, and it was estimated that the wind was gusting at up to 130 km/h. The little fishing boat was tossed about and it was only superb seamanship on Gerhard’s part that kept the crew alive.

‘It was just up one mountain of a wave, then down the mountain – big, big seas. And so it carried on and on until I guess it was about two or two-thirty in the morning. It had calmed just a little bit and I turned the boat around and we came back with those big seas running behind us, and we pumped water on that boat. The men pumped all the time, and then when we turned, with the sea behind us, it went a little bit better.

‘And we headed for home. We only had lanterns on the boats and then someone said, “There’s a lantern.” Dawn was breaking and we saw this lantern. And we got to where we had seen the lantern, and there were just planks and fish and jerseys and stuff drifting.

‘Then we saw one man in a lifebuoy, and I circled around him three times to get him in the boat, and eventually we got him in the boat, and it was a fisherman called John Arries.

‘There had been three other boats out, Charmaine, Seabird and Taljaard, and each of them had six men on them, 18 men altogether. And I picked up the only survivor, Arries.

‘Seventeen men drowned that night.’

* * *

The news of the Still Bay tragedy made headlines, especially in the western Cape newspapers. It hit home especially hard for Patti Price, a teacher and swimming instructor who had herself been rescued from the English Channel by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI).

Lieutenant Commander Alan Hollman RN (Retd), who joined the NSRI as Operations Officer in 1969, and who became CEO in March 1983, authored an informal, unpublished history of the organisation up until 1991.

He wrote that the story of Patti Price ‘goes back to early 1943 when South Africa was still a member of the British Commonwealth and there was a Southern African branch of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution of Great Britain. This was a fundraising organisation and raised the huge sum, in those days, of £36 000 to build three large lifeboats to replace some of those lost in the war. These were 42-footers and were named Southern Africa, Deneys Reitz and Field Marshal and Mrs Smuts and served the RNLI for over 20 years.

‘Prominent among this fundraising committee and workers had been a small, dynamic woman named Miss Patti Price. She was deeply shocked by the (1966) deaths of the fishermen in Still Bay and found it unacceptable that South Africans should have donated so much to an overseas lifeboat service, yet men should have died in this tragedy for want of a lifeboat to go to their aid. Miss Price, herself, in her early life was rescued by a lifeboat from a wrecked ship in the English Channel.

‘Accordingly she wrote in the strongest terms to the press and also to the then president of the Society of Master Mariners of South Africa, Captain John Payn, and said that something must be done about it. As a result, the Master Mariners, at their annual congress in August 1966 in Cape Town, made a resolution to set up the South African Inshore Sea Rescue Service and so the NSRI was launched.

‘The essence of the new service would be that its crew members would all be volunteers receiving no payment or allowances, and so it has remained to this day.’

Hollman wrote that ‘the next step was for the Master Mariners to invite a number of prominent men in the shipping and fishing industries and yachting and power boating to form an action committee. These gentlemen met for the first time in Cape Town in late 1966 and elected as their chairman Mr PJ O’Sullivan of the SA Fish Canners. Pat O’Sullivan remained in the chair for the next 20 years, and in 1989 was decorated by the State President for this outstanding voluntary service to South Africa.

‘The Honorary Secretary was Captain Douglas Milward, who later served on the Port Elizabeth committee. The Honorary Treasurer was Mr GV Myburgh, an accountant and Springbok sailor, who later succeeded Mr O’Sullivan as Chairman of the Institute.

‘Foremost amongst their aims was to raise money for the new service and to appoint an Honorary Chief Administrative Officer to organise the seagoing side of the operation. Their fortunate choice fell upon Captain RH (Bob) Deacon, a young master mariner and instructor at the Merchant Navy Academy “General Botha” and a fine seaman. Bob had a Mate’s Certificate of Competency in sail, one of several South Africans to achieve this distinction, others being Captain WJ (Billy) Damerell, later a director of the NSRI, and Captain P Nankin, who as Captain Superintendent of the Merchant Navy Academy gave invaluable assistance to the NSRI for many years.

‘Late in 1966, the NSRI’s first rescue boat arrived from England. It had been donated by the Society of Master Mariners and was a 15-foot six inches inflatable built by the RFD company, and powered by a 40-horsepower Evinrude outboard engine. This was the same type of...