EAST LONDON – Yacht assisted:

At 19h50 on Saturday the 18th of May East London duty crew were called out to assist the 14 meter motor yacht BALLYHOO reporting to have run aground just outside of the Port of East London.Geoff McGregor, NSRI East London station commander, said: 'Our duty crew launched LOTTO RESCUER and on arrival on-scene found BALLYHOO parked gently aground in shallow water, at anchor, on a shallow sand bank just outside the Port with owner skipper Graham Wentworth, his wife and a crewman onboard.'It appears that they had put the nose of the motor yacht onto a shallow sand bank to offload two passengers onto the shore but in the shallow water the motor propellors were fouled in sand damaging both gear boxes and rendering the yacht powerless.'We rigged a tow-line and after dumping their anchor we managed to successfully pull the yacht off the sand and out of the shallow water and we towed her to Port.'