VAAL DAM Boat hard aground assisted:

Monday 25th June 2012.NSRI Vaal Dam volunteer rescue duty crew went to assist Dries du Toit who accidentally ran his 25 foot Bayliner onto the hard in a shallow section of the Vaal River after launching on Saturday afternoon 23rd June from the Afrikaans Hengel Vereeniging Oord, 21 nautical miles from the NSRI rescue base at Manten Marina at 12h27 on Monday 25th.Dick Manten, NSRI Vaal Dam station commander said that at the time Mr. du Toit and his crew were unable to get their boat free despite their extensive efforts on Saturday afternoon and they called NSRI early on Saturday evening requesting assistance. Since all the crew were confirmed to be safe onboard plans were made to send an NSRI team to help on Sunday morning.Unknown to Mr. du Toit and his crew the fateful tornado struck shortly after he had called for assistance on Saturday and only when he checked with the NSRI on Sunday morning, to find out what time the NSRI would be coming to help, did they hear of the Tornado, as the area that they were in was unaffected.Today our NSRI volunteer rescue duty crew towed my private boat Skin Ray and our NSRI rescue craft Harvey's Fiberglass which we launched on arrival and using about 400 meters of rope, and both of our boats, in very shallow water, we managed to eventually pull the casualty craft off the hard and once free they required no further assistance.