Darren Zimmerman, NSRI Simons Town station commander, said: At 11h24, Tuesday, 25 August, NSRI Simons Town duty crew were activated following a notification from NSRI EOC (Emergency Operations Centre) reporting an NSRI SafeTrx emergency alert indication of 2 surf-skiers in distress 1 nautical mile North of Roman Rock, offshore of Simons Town.
NSRI coast watchers were alerted to look out to get visuals of the casualties while our NSRI duty crew responded to our NSRI Simons Town station 10 rescue base where our NSRI rescue craft Donna Nicholas was launched.
NSRI coast watchers got visuals of the 2 men on 2 surf-ski’s, one appeared to be helping the other.
NSRI EOC made contact with the surf-skiers who indicated that one man had fallen out of his surf-ski and a second man, on a surf-ski, was assisting on the scene.
They were drifting, on both surf-ski’s, in the direction of Glencairn.
Our crew onboard our rescue craft used the onboard NSRI SafeTrx screen to track their drift pinpointing updated information to our NSRI crew on their position.
On our NSRI rescue craft arriving on the scene, in 2 meter sea swells and 30 knot South Easterly winds, 2 NSRI rescue swimmers were deployed into the water and the casualty man was recovered onto the rescue craft and his surf-ski was recovered.
At least 5 Humpback whales, in close proximity of the rescue operation, were all breaching at intervals around our rescue craft while the rescue operation progressed, but causing no harm and no alarm.
The man was treated for mild hypothermia onboard our rescue craft but he was not injured.
The Good Samaritan man continued on his paddle, making his way safely to Fish Hoek Beach.
The casualty man was brought safely to our NSRI rescue base and he required no further assistance.
It appears that a local 73 year old man was surf-skiing on a down wind paddle when he fell out of his surf-ski. On falling out of his surf-ski his leash broke and his surf-ski drifted away from him in the strong winds.
A second paddler, a local adult male, a Good Samaritan, he had seen the incident occur. He paddled after the casualty surf-ski and on reaching the surf-ski he used a bungee chord to connect to the casualty surf-ski. He towed the unmanned casualty surf-ski back to the 73 year old man, who was in the water, and assisting each other together the casualty man was able to get back onto his surf-ski while they also activated their NSRI SafeTrx emergency alert on their cellphones NSRI SafeTrx App’s.
The 73 year old man was unable to continue paddling and together they stayed afloat waiting for our NSRI rescue craft that swiftly reached them and rescued the casualty man onto our rescue craft.
NSRI commend the Good Samaritan for his swift actions.
