A north lifeboat station is celebrating its 25th anniversary – by reaching its 700th call-out.
The Kessock crew, based at North Kessock, are today marking a quarter of a century of rescues after a busy weekend.
The sense of history had to take a back seat as the crew dealt with back-to-back calls on Sunday – the first a Rib with engine failure less than half a mile from the lifeboat station.
They vessel and four pasengers were towed in.
The crew was then stood down for less than two hours, as it turned out, before their pagers were sounded again at 6.50pm.
A small cruiser had set off for a day’s fishing again with four people on board, again suffering engine failure, this time caused by suspected fuel contamination.
The cruiser was located near Chanonry Point and taken under tow by the lifeboat who then turned into the worsening conditions to head back to Inverness Marina.
Dan Holland, volunteer Lifeboat Press Officer for RNLI Kessock said: “Despite this being a busy afternoon for us, we were pleased to see that all eight people we rescued today were wearing lifejackets or buoyancy aids and had good means of calling for help with them.
“Coming just days before the 25th anniversary of a RNLI lifeboat being based in North Kessock hopefully this successful outcome for all involved can be used to show the importance of being correctly prepared when you go to sea.”
Today there are 25 volunteers at Kessock lifeboat station, all of whom are ready to respond to the sound of the pagers that they carry at all times. Coming from a variety of backgrounds including tree surgery, dentistry, estate agents, fish sales, pilot boat skipper, heating engineer and teachers to name just a few.
Alan McDiarmid, current chairman of Kessock lifeboat recalls one of his most memorable shouts from the early days: “we were working with Invergordon lifeboat in tremendous breaking surf just off Nairn trying to get to a yacht that had gone aground.
“Conditions were too rough for Invergordon to get close so we had to take every bit of towline they had, link it with everything we had and head into the breaking waves to get to the yacht.
2We capsized the small Y-boat twice on the way in, but still managed to get the towline secured, despite it parting twice during the tow we were able to get the vessel floating. It was a great example of both crews working together in unpleasant conditions to help someone in distress.”