Durban sea rescue station named the best
Durban's Station 5 was named the best Class 1 station in SA – out of 10 stations that house offshore rescue craft.
THE National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) recently named Durban-based Station 5 the best Class 1 station. There are 51 NSRI stations around the country, and 10 of them are classified as Class 1 stations.
Clifford Ireland, NSRI regional rep for KwaZulu-Natal, explained that Durban’s Station 5 houses a Class 1 offshore rescue craft (ORC) which is 14m long.
“This is a Class 1 vessel, which is a cabin vessel with in-board diesels, as opposed to a Class 3 vessel, a rigid inflatable boat (RIB) without board engines. We have two different categories for awards, and Station 5, Durban, won the best Class 1 station for 2022. We are doing a fleet recapitalisation because most of our big boats are over 30 years old now. This was boat number one of its class. We received it four years ago. We have just delivered boat five to Richards Bay about two months ago,” added Ireland.
“The main difference with a cabin boat is that people are inside, which allows the crew to be kept warm and dry. The bigger working platform is more stable in rough seas. Durban does a lot of medivacs to big ships where there are injured sailors on board. Anyone coming from the Far East, around Africa, to Europe and America, if they are injured on the route, the first port of call is Durban. They will come here, go alongside the ship, put the patient in a stokes basket and lower them down with a rope system onto the deck of the ORC. The bigger the boat, the larger the area to work on, the more stable it is and the easier it is to receive the person,” said Ireland.
The Covid-19 pandemic broke out shortly after NSRI Station 5 received the boat.
“In the first two years of Covid-19, we conducted over 100 medivacs. Adding to that, we have done yacht tows and ski-boat rescues. This boat has range – it is able to go 250 nautical miles, which is about 400 odd kilometres. We can go quite far out to sea or along the coast to fetch people,” he said
This boat does 28 knots, which is about 55km – very fast over water. The boat weighs over 20 tons. There are six crew members who operate the boat: One helmsman, one coxswain who drives the boat, one navigator, a boatswain who looks after the engine and deck, and two crew members,” he said, adding that Durban averages about one rescue a week,” added Ireland.
“We also do standbys for some of the canoe races in the harbour, fishing competitions and ocean swims; we do standby for a lot of these events, so it’s not only training and rescues,” added Janine Rudolph, Deputy Station Commander for Durban NSRI.
The boat is kept out of the water in a boat shed to preserve its condition.
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