The National Sea Rescue Institute’s (NSRI) fifth offshore rescue craft (ORC) is currently en route from Cape Town, where the vessels are built, to Richards Bay, Station 19 in KwaZulu-Natal, on the longest sea journey in the organisation’s history.
The NSRI is the only maritime rescue service operating in South African territorial waters, and modern rescue vessels such as the ORC are in high demand.
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The NSRI’s Director of Rescue Services, Brett Ayres, is pleased to announce that ORC number five has been added to the organisation’s fleet.
‘Rescue 19 will be able to cover the northern coastline of KZN up to the Mozambique border. This is one of many reasons why this latest ORC went to Richards Bay,’ he said.
The total distance travelled by the ORC to KZN is 1 068 nautical miles, or over 1 900 kilometres, with the crew averaging 38 kilometres per hour. Mossel Bay was the first stop to refuel and replenish supplies.
The ORC is travelling by sea for strategic reasons because it is much less expensive than road freight.
‘Preparing for a trip of this nature requires a lot of planning. One needs to do a full passage plan as well as consider logistics, weather and sea conditions. A passage plan is a process where you consider all the hazards and plot a safe passage with all the different bearings, speeds and fuel consumptions for each leg. You also must make sure that there is enough fuel on the vessel, which requires a few stops along the way,’ added NSRI Training Manager Graeme Harding, who’s the delivery skipper for the voyage.
Although the majority of NSRI rescues are coastal and inshore, the coastline that the ORC will serve is shared with Durban and Ballito stations at the Tugela River, KZN’s largest river. Ayres adds that this vessel is needed in the area because the Richards Bay rescue base serves both commercial shipping and yacht traffic. The distances and local sea conditions necessitate the use of a class I boat.
Following its first stop in Mossel Bay, the ORC will make stops in Gqeberha, East London and Durban before reaching its final destination in Richards Bay. Two of these legs are quite long, including the 14-hour journey from Cape Town to Mossel Bay and the 12-hour journey from East London to Durban.
If something goes wrong, the crew has planned a safety net around the coastline. A passage plan has been left behind at the NSRI Volunteer Support Centre, where the vessel’s location is always known and all tracking systems are monitored, as is done with all NSRI vessels when they go to sea. The ORC is expected to arrive in Richards Bay on Saturday afternoon.
Brett explained that they will now be able to see a significant improvement in their ability to provide rescue services in northern KZN. Because Richards Bay is their most northern class 1 station, they are strategically located to cover the coastline.
‘We now have two ORCs in the province, one in our Durban rescue base, meaning KZN is now well covered, and we can respond quickly and safely to a far larger coastal area. We will continue to do our job of saving lives in South African waters, and the ORC certainly makes this more effective,’ concludes Brett.
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Picture: National Sea Rescue Institute