NSRI Station 8 - History

Rotary Club of
Hout Bay

The History of the NSRI in Hout Bay

	The Sea Rescue base in Hout Bay was opened on 01 January 1979 and began with a very small boat, few crew and a brand new shed which was situated on the current harbour car park. It was initially intended as a fast response, inshore rescue boat station, but with the high levels of calls being experienced, and the distance offshore combined with size of the fishing boats to be assisted, it soon became clear that Station 8 had to be a big boat station. Today, stands one of the busiest sea rescue bases in Africa, manned by a crew of 54 volunteers with a combined service time of over 8600 hours of sea time and housing over 5 million Rands worth of equipment, not to mention the prime property the new double story base is standing on. The old base utilised a dog leg winch to launch the 8m Spirit of Mobile down the public harbour slipway. If one looks closely at the slipway, you will notice a metal eye at the top of it where we used to connect the belay runner for launching Spirit of Mobil.

The new base was completed in early 1990 and was scheduled to be opened on 02/06/1990. Its new position alongside the ABC clubhouse enabled it to have direct slipway access for both rescue vessels, as well as a great balcony for social occasions. However, a week before this, two contractors who were working on the boat inside the boat house by inserting Explosafe into the petrol tanks to reduce the danger of fire and explosion if the vessel caught fire. The resin used during a repair suddenly ignited and destroyed the Spirit of Mobil, injuring both of the workmen. The new boat house was severely damaged by smoke and flame. It took a further 9 months to refurbish the building, which was finally opened officially around June 1991. With the Spirit of Mobil being destroyed in the fire, it was replaced with the Spirit of Rotary, a 10m all weather rescue boat. Spirit of Rotary was built in 1975, she has served at NSRI Mossel and NSRI Walvis Bay before being transferred to Hout Bay. She was retired in October 2006 after many years of service by an ex-RNLI Brede Class lifeboat in 2006. After this, the crew assisted in the repairs of the base, and it has not changed much since then. A new garage has been added on to house the new landwards communications support vehicle, known as Rescue 8 Mobile (2005) The base was named the "Ken Brady Base" on 29th November 2009 in honour of Ken Brady, who was Station Commander of the base from 1979 until 1992.

The old radar from Spirit of Rotary was installed on the roof of the base in 2004, enabling the crew to practice there radar skills without getting wet when the Spirit of Rotary was refitted in 2004 with new Furuno electronic search equipment.

Site designed and maintained by Spencer Oldham.
Send mail to spencer@worldonline.co.za with questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: 11-Mar-2010