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Lifeboat coxswain awarded for gallantry

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The coxswain of Islay lifeboat and his volunteer crew have been given awards after saving a yachtsman’s life during a storm.

Coxswain David MacLellan, 46, was given the RNLI Bronze Medal for Gallantry – one of the charity’s highest accolades – for his display of great skill and seamanship in an extremely arduous service.

The presentation was made in front of more than 120 people at Bowmore Village Hall, Islay.

The RNLI’s chief executive Paul Boissier, who presented the award, said: “The medal is awarded in recognition of your personal courage, your leadership and remarkable seamanship on that night.

“You fully deserve this medal and I know you will wear it with enormous pride for years to come.”

Mr MacLellan, who has been with the charity since 1990, said: “I might have been the one making the decisions and helming the boat, but this was undoubtedly a fantastic team effort with the crew on the deck doing the hard work.

“We have a good team here on Islay with the crew, operations and fundraisers. The fundraisers do a fantastic job every year raising funds to provide the community with the best possible boat and equipment.”

His four crew members were also recognised for their part in the rescue, an operation which lasted 18 hours on February 16 2016.

Mechanic David McArthur, 42; navigator Thomas Coope, 31; crew member Duncan MacGillivray, 32; and crew member Peter Thomson, 38; received framed letters of thanks from the RNLI chairman.

Captain Martin Porter 62, of the Deep Energy pipelay vessel, also received a framed letter of thanks from the RNLI chairman.

The RNLI also gave official thanks to the owners of Deep Energy with a letter from the RNLI chief executive.

Letters of thanks also go from the charity’s operations director to the pilot and crew of Rescue Helicopter R100 and to Gavin Hyne, 28, a crew member of Deep Energy. He is also a volunteer mechanic at RNLI Buckie lifeboat station.

Captain Porter handed over a cheque for £500 to Mr Boissier, saying that he was honoured to be at the ceremony and to be given a framed letter of thanks.

The rescue was one of 1,102 call outs attended by RNLI volunteers from 46 lifeboat stations in Scotland in 2016, one of the charity’s busiest years.

The Islay lifeboat crew had to contend with extremely challenging weather that included winds of nearly 60 knots, driving sleet and treacherous sea conditions as they helped a yacht, Vestavind II, that had struck rocks at Skerryvore Reef and then started drifting.

The volunteer crew tried several times to make the Russian yachtsman tie the tow rope to his boat but attempts floundered in the face of appalling weather and the yachtsman’s difficulty in understanding what was required.

Eventually the yachtsman left the drifting yacht and climbed aboard Deep Energy from where he was airlifted to safety. The Islay lifeboat Helmut Schroder of Dunlossit II had left station at 12.45am on February 16, 2016 and returned at 6.20pm. The RNLI’s Barra lifeboat was also in attendance.