A north-east teenager has become the latest member of his family to answer the call of Fraserburgh’s lifeboat.
Declan Sutherland was part of the team who attended to a yacht in distress off the coast of Troup Head last Sunday, when volunteers were paged to the harbour.
The 17-year-old only received his pager from the boat’s coxswain – and his uncle – Victor Sutherland 24 hours before being pressed into service.
But Mr Sutherland told his nephew to expect something to come up sooner rather than later.
The youngster is the latest member of the Sutherland clan to join Fraserburgh’s lifeboat. His father, Dave, is the second coxswain, and his grandfather, Victor, was second-in-command when his twin brother, Albert, was coxswain in the 1980s and 90s.
He said: “I didn’t honestly think we would get paged so quickly.
“When I got my pager, I knew what to expect as my father Dave has always had one and I knew that it could go any time – day or night when you’re least expecting it.
“Luckily for me, I had just got into my car when the pager went off, so I was in the ideal position to be able to respond quickly and get down to the station in time to make the shout.
“When I got to the station, everyone got suited and booted quickly and, before I knew it, I was on the lifeboat with the rest of the crew and we were heading out of the harbour at high speed.”
The crew, who were working alongside Macduff’s lifeboat, trained for a similar situation just three days prior to the incident.
The yacht was subsequently towed to Macduff’s harbour. Its crew had left Struer in Denmark on Wednesday to travel towards the Caledonian Canal.
Passing Fraserburgh, they thought they had beaten the bad weather, but conditions deteriorated rapidly with the wind speed increasing from 20 knots to 35 in a matter of minutes as they were off Troup Head, near Gardenstown.
They eventually lost their main sail and were forced to contact the coastguard for help.
