By Leila Samodien & Murray Williams
The shark-watching vessel that capsized off Gansbaai over the weekend was hit by a "freak or rogue" wave, the NSRI has confirmed.
Two Americans and a Norwegian died after the wave hit the 11-metre catamaran broadside and overturned it on Sunday morning.
"Without a shadow of a doubt it was a freak or rogue wave," the NSRI's Craig Lambinon said on Monday morning.
'I suppose the ones who survived were just lucky' Witnesses had differing estimates of the wave's size, but sources said it would have had to have been around four metres in order to capsize Shark Team.
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Lambinon said the size of the average swell running on Sunday morning had been a relatively small and calm 2m.
Mariette Hopley, chairperson of the Great White Shark Protection Foundation, said the swell itself had passed beneath the boat, as a swell would usually have. But on top of the swell was a freak wave.
"It came down right on top of them," she said.
All 10 tourists on board and the nine crew members were thrown into the sea, and the three who drowned had apparently been trapped beneath the vessel.
'It just makes you respect nature more' Police spokesperson Andre Traut has named the drowned tourists as Cassey Scott Lajeunesse, 35, from Maine, Christopher Tollman, 34, from California, and Kenneth Roque, 37, from Moss, Norway.
After the tragedy, the vessel was towed to Gansbaai harbour, where it was righted using a large crane, and hauled from the water on its trailer.
The group of 10 foreign tourists and nine crew members were shark-cage diving in the waters off Kleinbaai, a small town next to Gansbaai, when disaster struck.
A Londoner - who was aboard the vessel but asked not to be named - said they had just finished diving and were preparing to return to shore when he saw the wave approaching rapidly.
"It looked like a freak wave, something like the wave on the video of the (2004 Indian Ocean) tsunami.
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