Busy night and day for Oban lifeboat

The most serious incident saw the volunteer crew paged to reports of a young child clinging to an upturned kayak off the shore of Ardmucknish Bay near Oban airport.

As the lifeboat made best speed to the location, a number of other vessels were also responding to the incident including a yacht which was able to relay updates from nearby and then report that the child had made it safely to shore.

Oban Coastguard Rescue Team quickly arrived on scene and were able to confirm that the child was safe, allowing the lifeboat to stand down at 11.10am, 10 minutes after launching.

The crew of the Mora Edith Macdonald were back inside Oban Bay heading to the fuel berth when they picked up a call from a yacht that had lost power and was drifting in the north entrance to the bay. The yacht was taken under tow to the Oban Transit Marina and secured alongside shortly before 12 noon.

Oban lifeboat was waiting to refuel in Oban when a further call came in to a yacht caught in a creel line between the southern shore of Kerrera and Insh island. When the crew reached the casualty, it was already being assisted by a local fishing boat. The yacht was taken under tow to Kerrera Marina and, once the yacht was secured, the lifeboat was successfully refuelled at the third attempt.

Early this morning, Oban lifeboat worked in tandem with Tobermory lifeboat to transfer three police officers from Oban to Tiree as part of a police operation. Crew members were paged shortly after 2.30am and arrived back on station at 5.10am.

Deputy Coxswain Finlo Cottier says it was a busy 12 hours:

'On each occasion during our daytime operations today, we were helped by other seafarers.

'We would like to express thanks to the officers of the Calmac ferries Isle of Lewis, Isle of Mull and Loch Frisa who maintained their distance from the casualty vessel at the north entrance to Oban Bay to allow a tow to be established safely.”

'We are also very grateful for the support that we received from other vessels during the urgent call to Ardmucknish Bay and the fishing boat that first went to the assistance of the yacht near Insh Island.'

Note to Editors

Oban is a busy station serving one of the largest stretches of coastline in the UK, flanked by RNLI colleagues based at Tobermory, Islay and Campbeltown.

The Oban volunteer crew operate the Trent Class All Weather lifeboat Mora Edith MacDonald from our base at the South Pier on Gallanach Road, close to the CalMac ferry terminal.

RNLI Media Contacts

For further information, please contact:

John Macgill Volunteer Lifeboat Press Officer for Oban RNLI on 07711 548672 or email [email protected]

Stephen Lawson Volunteer Lifeboat Press Officer for Oban RNLI on 07776 340629 or email [email protected]

Natasha Bennett, Regional Media Officer (Scotland), on 07826 900639 [email protected]

Martin Macnamara, Regional Media Manager (Scotland), on 07920 365929 or [email protected]

RNLI Press Office 01202 336789 or [email protected]

Key facts about the RNLI

The RNLI charity saves lives at sea. Its volunteers provide a 24-hour search and rescue service around the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland coasts. The RNLI operates 238 lifeboat stations in the UK and Ireland and more than 240 lifeguard units on beaches around the UK and Channel Islands. The RNLI is independent of Coastguard and government and depends on voluntary donations and legacies to maintain its rescue service. Since the RNLI was founded in 1824, its lifeboat crews and lifeguards have saved over 142,700 lives.

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