Five crew members, who were on board the vessel SV Wizard that sank
on Thursday after striking a container, are safe and on board a ship
heading to Singapore.
Skipper Gerrie Boshoff, of Vanderbijlpark, and the crew were sailing
from Reunion to Durban when the Wizard struck the container 364 nautical
miles west of Cabo Inhaca near Maputo, Mozambique.
Mark Steed, of the Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre (MRCC), said they received a distress beacon alert at 4.30am.
He said the data had been checked against the beacon database and was found to belong to the SV Wizard.
“Contact with the vessel was attempted but… was unsuccessful. A
second beacon detection also found to belong to the vessel was also
received by the MRCC,” he said.
Steed said a safety net broadcast to vessels in the area was put out asking all vessels to respond and assist.
“Two vessels, the Eva Schulte and the Voge Felix, responded and were
at the time about six hours away. The vessels were instructed to divert
to the distress position and to assist with the rescue,” he said.
“At approximately 1pm the two diverted vessels reported that they
were in the distress position. The master of the Eva Schulte reported
that he had spotted what looked like a life raft. He immediately
launched the rescue boat to go investigate,” Steed said.
He said the rescue boat had reported that they had found the raft and
confirmed that all five crew were on board. However, by that time, the
vessel had already sunk.
The raft was towed closer to the ship and the survivors were evacuated to ship.
The Eva Schulte had been sailing from Durban to Singapore. “At this
stage it cannot be confirmed where the survivors will be delivered
because the master was still doing an evaluation of the survivors and
would make a decision about the best plan of action,” he said.
Steed said this was a very unfortunate situation and that on
September 24, the same vessel had been involved in another emergency.
“The skipper had damaged his eye severely and the vessel was diverted
to Mauritius. The skipper flew back to South Africa and this trip by
sea was just to complete the voyage that had started in Australia some
weeks back,” he said.
Cospas-Sarsat