Hout Bay Harbour Cable Theft Hampers Yacht Rescue

Brad Geyser, NSRI Hout Bay station commander said: “On Monday 22 March at 18h28 NSRI Hout Bay were activated to go to the assistance of the 45 foot sailing yacht Piri Reis reporting to have total electronic failure off-shore of Mauri Bay (near Llandudno) with local Hout Bay skipper Sam Leggat and one female crew and struggling in the gusting to 50 knot South Easterly winds.

“NSRI Hout Bay launched our rescue craft MTU Nadine Gordimer and on arrival on-scene, 6 nautical miles off the coast, NSRI crew were transferred onto the yacht to assist and a tow-line was rigged and the yacht was towed safely to Hout Bay harbour.

“The yacht had left her anchor at Clifton to sail to Hout Bay but after experiencing electronic failure they had gotten into difficulty in the strong South Easterly and requested assistance.”

The NSRI has raised of great concern the problem of no navigational lights at the entrance to Hout Bay harbour and lighting, that is supposed to be positioned to light up the harbour wall, is also no longer in place.

The problem of limited navigational lighting at the entrance to the harbour and of limited lighting inside the harbour is apparently the result of cable theft.

In another incident this week a German yacht, sailing from Dusseldorf, Germany, missed the harbour entrance and almost ran aground on Hout Bay beach as there were no navigational lights to guide the yacht into the harbour.

During last nights rescue, with storm sea conditions and a moon obscured by cloudy conditions, the rescue craft was forced to use spotlights to get into the harbour while towing the casualty yacht as there is no navigational lighting reference to guide vessels through the harbour entrance and on a number of occasions the rescue was hampered and jeopardised by the lack of sufficient lighting in Hout Bay harbour.