As members of the International Maritime Rescue Federation ( IMRF ) and as such NSRI recently donated one of our 5.5m semi-rigid boats to the Uruguay Sea Rescue Service (ADES). Getting it to Uruguay has proved to be quite a logistical feat. There is no direct route by sea from Cape Town to South America. This complicates any logistics operations.Hamburg Sud will carry this container for 59 days from Port Elizabeth to China and the far east and then all the way down to Buenos Aries on the South Bank of the River Platte in Argentina.Thereafter, they will tranship the container to another feeder vessel to cross over to Montevideo in Uruguay where the container will be discharged and off-loaded into the welcome care of the Uruguay Sea Rescue Service -ADES.This complex operation is not the work of one person but the teamwork of many parties:Milltrans in the western Cape have already loaded the container and trucked it up to their depot in Port Elizabeth to wait for the vessel City of Shanghai to call on the 24th of April.The NSRI is fortunate to have among its 980 volunteers from all walks of life, a pool of people to use as resources over and above their sea rescue responsibilities. These are people who use the skills and relationships in their network of friends and contacts to support the NSRI in many projects. These are projects required in the day to day business of behind-the-scenes activity that keeps the NSRI running smoothly.
We'd like to say a very big thank you to everyone who made this project possible.
- Especially Andy Connell, an NSRI volunteer who has built up goodwill amongst shipping lines and ships agents over his 20 years in the shipping industry. He called upon these contacts who have not failed to rally to his call to support the NSRI in projects.
- Hamburg Sud have a wonderful maritime history and when asked to support the NSRI on this very complex shipping route, they responded quickly and favorably. Jose Jardim, the Hamburg Sud principle drove this donation through his principles in Hamburg Germany. Suren Beeprajh, the customer service manager, made it all happen.
- Frans Stapelberg, the MD of Milltrans Transport agreed to do the transport pro-bono with Gary Nass making all arrangements. Milltrans have collected the empty 6m container and loaded the rescue boat in Cape Town before trucking it up to Port Elizabeth.
- Reiner van der Walt from Dole who gave up his time to oversee the container loading operations and to oil the wheels at the loading depot.
Achmat Burgher, the manager at SAFT CFT who kindly, once again, allowed us to abuse his good will and interfere with his normal work so we can use his cross-dock facility to put the boat from trailer to container.
- Craig Garrow from Pronto Clearing is a long time supporter of the NSRI who unfailingly has offered to perform all the import and export customs formalities at no cost.
