Wolraad Woltemade rescues 14 sailors at the Cape of Good Hope from the sinking ship De Jonge Thomas by riding his horse into the sea seven times. He drowned on his eighth attempt.
Wolraad Woltemade (c.1708 – 1 June 1773) was a Cape Dutch dairy farmer, who died while rescuing sailors from the wreck of the ship De Jonge Thomas in Table Bay on 1 June 1773. The story was reported by the Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg who was in South Africa as a surgeon for the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (known in English as the Dutch East India Company) at the time.