Buckie lifeboat tows yacht to safety
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THERE was a busy end to the weekend for Buckie's volunteer RNLI lifeboat crew when they went to the assistance of a yacht.
The William Blannin was launched around 5.30pm on Sunday, September 11 to assist a yacht some three quarters of a mile north east of Lossiemouth.
The 25-foot yacht, with three people on board, had suffered engine failure and was unable to make her way into Lossiemouth Marina under her own power.
Coxswain Davie Grant took the yacht in tow but, reaching Lossiemouth at a low spring tide, was unable to enter the harbour: the lifeboat’s daughter craft, the inflatable Y-boat, was launched to complete the tow.
Coxswain Grant said: “This was a textbook service by our volunteer crew in benign weather conditions.
"The casualty vessel had simply suffered the kind of mechanical failure which can befall any vessel at sea.”
It follows on from a callout after Buckie Lifeboat Day on Saturday, September 3, when the crew were called to sea on service at 8pm to reports of two paddleboarders in difficulty off Strathlene.
The crew – who were still at the station tidying up after the day's event – launched immediately and were quickly on scene.
Two paddleboarders were taken aboard and returned to the lifeboat station where they underwent precautionary assessments by the station's medical adviser, Dr Catriona Macdonald.
