Vasco Da Gama Ocean Race (Facebook)
Four crew members taking part in the Vasco Da Gama ocean race had to be rescued when their yacht collided with a container at sea.
The three men and a woman were returning to Durban from East London on Friday following the completion of the race.
A spokesperson for the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) Craig Lambinon, says the crew alerted race officials that they were taking on water and busy sinking offshore along the Eastern Cape coastline.
Lambinon says another sailing yacht diverted to respond to the mayday but was approximately four hours away.
He says as a result the NSRI teams from East London, Port Edward, Durban, Shelley Beach Mdumbi and Port St Johns were placed on alert.
To locate the crew, the 69-year-old skipper and his crew, all in their sixties, were instructed to switch all but one of their phones off to reserve battery power.
Lambinon says on arrival at Port St Johns, the NSRI Port Edward rescue craft determined that the casualty sailing yacht and the life raft had drifted in the overcast heavy rain conditions, with up to 2-meter sea swells and they were at that stage in the vicinity of Coffee Bay.
He says the NSRI East London alerted the Police Air Wing and the EC Government Health EMS rescue helicopter to be on standby.
The crew was instructed to deploy a 1000-foot red distress parachute flare which was seen by the NSRI Port Edwards crew, however, they were much further South than initially determined.
Upon searching the area, the yacht was located adrift with her bow up and stern deep underwater but barely semi-submerged.
The crew was then asked, to set off a pencil-red distress flare which led the rescue craft to a spot near Coffee Bay where they found the cold and thirsty crew.
Lambinon says they were cold and thirsty and were treated for hypothermia and hydration but required no further medical care.
They were reunited with their families and will be staying with friends this weekend before making their way back to Durban.
Their yacht, Tipsy, washed ashore on the rocky shoreline in the vicinity of Coffee Bay.
This was the longest NSRI RHIB (Rigid Hull Inflatable Craft) rescue operation in the history of NSRI, the NSRI Port Edward rescue craft Spirit of Steve covered a distance of approximately 158 nautical miles in total.
