Thousands of rands were raised by the Gordon’s Bay Yacht Club for the sea angels, the National Sea Rescue Institute’s (NSRI) Station 9, based in the local harbour, at this year’s Anything That Floats event – a weekend of fun and festivities.
The outcome of all the revelry was a cheque for R55 000 that changed hands between yacht club treasurer Francois Denner and NSRI Gordon’s Bay Station 9 commander Alan Meiklejohn.
The event was combined with a Harbour Market, held where the club is based at the old Gordon’s Bay Harbour.
The day started with a walk from Hendon Park to the waters, where revellers put themselves at the mercy of all kinds of particularly interesting floats, ate, drank and were generally merry and festive.
Yacht club commodore Jana Loubser, the driving force behind and founder of Anything That Floats, was ecstatic about its success this year.
“I’m so thrilled with the outcome of the event. Being able to handover more than R50 000 is so exciting, but the biggest thrill for me was seeing the harbour users come together as the little community it is, to do good,” she related. “That’s pretty much a dream come true, and we’re determined to make this an annual event.”
The NSRI is a voluntary organisation manned by around 1 500 people over 53 bases nationally. So much of what it does is in the background and out of the public eye.
“We sometimes feel that what we do is not seen or appreciated by the public – because so much happens out at sea, with no-one around – and then this amazing team comes along, brings the community together and shows us tremendous love and generosity,” said Meiklejohn.
“After 18 years of service I still get emotional when people open their hearts and wallets for our cause.”
The local sea rescue crew is upgrading its current 8,5 m open rescue vessel with a 10,6 m cabin enclosed vessel.
This will greatly improve their operational footprint, while it will also be much kinder to the crew in adverse weather conditions and on extended call- out operations.
The current harbour infrastructure does not have capacity to build a suitable storage facility for a vessel this size, so the alternative is to house her on a floating dock.
This will protect the vessel, reduce maintenance, and extend the vessel lifespan. But its does not come cheap and after setting their sights on raising funds towards this piece of equipment, the combined harbour team managed, over a single weekend, to raise almost half of the cost of the new dock.
“Nothing short of amazing,” exclaimed Meiklejohn. “On behalf of the team at Station 9, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the love and generosity shown by everyone. We sincerely appreciate your support and will continue to do what we do, which is to save lives on South African waters.”
