A father and daughter who were sailing near Tain were rescued by a lifeboat after their engine broke down.
Coastguard received a call at 11.45am after they had been trying and failing for more than an hour to restart their engine.
They had been making the most of the sunny day with a sail in their new boat.
But the new vessel, a rib-style boat, was not performing as expected and the boat got into difficulty.
It’s anchor was also not holding and they were worried they would end up being pushed ashore – which could have destroyed the boat on the rocks.
A coastguard spokeswoman said: “They did the right thing in calling us.”
The independent lifeboat based in Dornoch, which is operated by East Sutherland Rescue Association (Esra), made the rescue mission.
They successfully towed the pair and their boat back to Inver, which is a short trip east from Tain.
Esra is one of six independent lifeboat stations in Scotland, and has to fund the project itself.
It was set up in 1981 after local people were concerned about the level of water-borne emergency response available.
In 2021, the volunteer-led charity was given a new £245,000 40-knot boat by Scotland’s richest man.
The nearest RNLI lifeboat station is at Invergordon, which is 12 miles away by land but over four times that distance by sea.
Conversation