Juan Pretorius, NSRI Port Alfred station commander, said; “At 10h26 on Monday 12 December, NSRI Port Alfred volunteer sea rescue duty crew were activated to investigate an eye-witness report of a large object appearing to be floating about 2 nautical miles off-shore of Cannon Rocks, West of Port Alfred.
“Members of our NSRI Port Alfred volunteer sea rescue duty crew drove our sea rescue vehicle to the location of the eye-witness account to look for ourselves while our local Coast watcher network was activated and our local coast watcher, looking at the object through binoculars, confirmed that it appeared to be an oversized buoy and our rescuers arriving on-scene confirmed this.
“Our duty crew launched our sea rescue craft KOWIE RESCUER and responded the 20 nautical miles West and on arriving on-scene found what may be a harbour mooring buoy?
“The object was too large for us to tow and MRCC (The Maritime Rescue Coordination Center) has activated a Salvage Tug to investigate and decide on a course of action to either scuttle the object or bring it into Port.
“A Navigational warning is being broadcast by the Maritime Radio Services to vessels using the area to be on alert to avoid a collision with the object.
“When our NSRI rescue craft arrived on-scene the object had already drifted at about two and a half knots in an Easterly direction to around 2 nautical miles off-shore of Boknes.
“Vessels and shipping in the area are warned of the Navigational hazard.”
