Snoek for Tow

Bruce Davidson, NSRI Bakoven station commander, said; “At 10h02, Sunday, 07th June, NSRI Table Bay were alerted by the Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) reporting the Snoek fishing boat BENGUELA suffering motor failure while fishing in Table Bay near to Robben Island.

“NSRI Bakoven were on the water at the time having launched the sea rescue craft ROTARIAN SCHIPPER earlier in the day for routine training.

“Our sea rescue craft has just recently been fitted with new outboard motors and we had launched this morning to test towing techniques with the new motors so we were more than happy to take over the call from Station 3, Table Bay, and our sea rescue craft diverted to rendezvous with BENGUELA who were lying between Robbed Island and Green Point.

“The ‘Tannie’ fishing boat OSPREY were already on the scene at BENGUELA, having gone over to wait with them, as a safety precaution, until sea rescue arrived and they assisted to guide us to where BENGUELA were lying in the water because on arrival on the scene we were confronted with many Snoek fishing boats all making best fishing of the abundant Snoek currently running in Table Bay (the many similar fishing boats making it at first difficult to locate BENGUELA).

“Once on the scene we found skipper Jay Tzamtzis, from Blouberg, his mom Regan and his brother Ryan safe and they reported that water was not running through the motors due to failure of the rotor seals.

“We explained to them that our sea rescue craft has new motors and that we had launched today to specifically test two towing methods specifically designed for use in towing call-outs with our new motors and since everyone was safe and they were still fishing and because it was such a fine day and on calm water would they mind if we stopped and changed the towing method while we towed them back to Oceana Power Boat Club (OPBC) in order that our crew can test both towing methods and they were more than happy to oblige.

“Their boat was towed safely to OPBC without incident and to our advantage both towing methods were successfully tested in a real scenario. They leisurely continued fishing while being gently towed to OPBC.

“NSRI Bakoven were given two large freshly caught Snoek as a thank you from Mrs Tzamtzis for towing them back to OPBC much to the delight of the NSRI Bakoven volunteers.”