SA Vloot / Fleet

SA FRIGATE GOES DOWN

President Kruger Sinks After Collision Off Cape

SA Frigate Goes Down

Huge air, sea rescue operation to save crew

A violent jerk wakens you. Then shouted commands. The captain is called to inspect the ship which is already beginning to list. The order is given.

Abandon ship!

There you are, in pitch darkness, fitted with a lifejacket and thrown into a sea being buffeted by a 30 knot south easter in water that is 3000m deep, 144km offshore at 4AM. That far out to sea the swells are the size of multi-storey buildings and you lose sight of any others floating with you.

Being a medic and not even from the navy, you have never been through a drill for what to do in the event of an emergency and you had been fast asleep at the time of the collision.

You look around and all you can see are the lights on what seems like a hundred other lifejackets. At first you panic and try to swim, but then you realise there is nowhere to swim to.

You are alone.

You float past a sailor who tells you not to try swimming, but rather just to stay afloat. “Do breast-stroke” he says.

You float, paddling to keep yourself vertical.

Something brushes past your leg, and reaching down you find you have caught a drogue (a sea anchor, looks like a parachute, designed to prevent lifeboats being blown away by the wind). Pulling yourself along the rope you arrive at a lifeboat but it is upside down. You spend the next three hours hanging onto the side of it, first with this arm, then with that arm, desperate not to let go.

When a rescue ship does arrive you see sailors standing at the sides with rifles. The thoughts pass through your mind – why would they want to shoot you, they’ve come to rescue you! You learn later that they were there to shoot sharks. Sharks! It hasn’t occurred to you once that there might be sharks. It was all you could do to stay afloat.

I decided to start this blog to record all the information I have about the collision and subsequent sinking of the SAS President Kruger on 18th February 1982, at 03:55AM after being hit by the SAS Tafelberg. I was serving as a medic, seconded from the SA Medical Services, on board during what was supposed to have been a simple exercise during which the SAS Tafelberg turned incorrectly and collided amidships with SAS PK.

I still have the watch I was wearing, with it’s hands forever stopped at that time.

Immediately after the event military intelligence confiscated all photographs and speaking about it was strictly forbidden. Searching the internet even now in July 2008 you will find very little about this tragic event, yet there were 16 lives lost that night.

This blog is an attempt to get more light on the subject. I have a created two full scrapbooks of the newspaper coverage of the event and the inquest that followed which I will scan and upload as I get the time.

I am interested in finding anyone else who may have been on the ship, or has documentation or photographs of the ship.