Three rescued after luxury power yacht crashes into Robben Island

A 45ft (13.7m) luxury power yacht sold to new Cape Town owners last week crashed into Robben Island on Tuesday night.

The National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) on Wednesday confirmed three men had been rescued from the vessel, which ran aground in dense fog east of the island.

“On arrival at the scene, in calm seas and dense fog, the vessel was found to be hard aground and listing,” said NSRI spokesperson Craig Lambinon.

“A rescue swimmer was deployed to swim and wade to the vessel. In relays of one at a time, the three crew were assisted to shore by the NSRI rescue swimmer and were assisted by department of forestry, fisheries and the environment officers on the land side.”

The Princess power yacht was sold by Boating World SA. It was a used Princess 45, one of the world’s top power yacht models. 

Boating World owner Derrick Levy confirmed the sale and said the boat, Atlantic Princess,  had a valid seaworthy certificate.

The vessel had departed from Granger Bay on Tuesday afternoon. Rescue crew were alerted at around 8pm and the rescue operation ended at around 1am.

Lambinon said officials would try to salvage the boat on Wednesday.

“Efforts to pull the yacht off the rocks were investigated, but in the low tide the effort was abandoned and an anchor was deployed to attempt to hold the yacht away from the shore at high tide due in the early hours of the morning.”

TimesLIVE