At 9:15 p.m. on Monday 26 October 2009 the gale force winds battering Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth) became too much for the Algoa Bay Yacht Club (ABYC) Moorings and they snapped around 30 metres from the shore ensnaring the Flamenca, Fandango, belonging to Chad Jackson, between High Spirit (Greg Ochabski) and Talisker (Ian Bancroft).
Further movement of the moorings towards the fishing jetty rendered the walkway impassable, denying boat owners access to their yachts.
At the end of the first mooring leg Rob Butler, on his trimaran Scrimshaw, frantically tried to save his boat from sure destruction as the moorings shifted inexorably closed on his boat in a pincer movement. The high winds and rising waves surging down the channel ground the moorings closed around Scrimshaw and NSRI Rescue 6 Alpha plucked Rob and his son, Andrew, off of Scrimshaw to safety as the boat tilted at a 50 degree angle.
Boat owners scurried frantically back and forth retrieving valuables and inserting fenders in an attempt to stop further damage.
Worried owners paced back and forth watching the howling wind and waves, forced to listen to their boats crying in agony as they scraped against one another and the mooring fingers.
With predictions from Port Control of the wind only abating at 6:00 a.m. weary owners set up a watch system and retired.
Further out in the Harbour, tugs battled to keep a cruise liner in her berth.
It took a full five years since that fateful night before the Mooring Company announced that they had completed repairs to the moorings.
A little known fact is that the Yacht Club, in a gesture of support for the moorings and as support for the sport of sailing, ceased to charge the Moorings for any utilities or services for a period of five years from the time of the disaster.