Marine News
Sent in by John Kinsman, operations manager at Coastwatch St Monans, east Fife
Summer sailing season
St Monans harbour was an hive of activity on Tuesday April 18th when a huge crane arrived to lift pleasure craft from storage on the middle pier into the harbour. A large crowd of both locals and visitors gathered at the harbour to witness the pleasure craft including yachts and small boats hoisted high above the harbour by the huge crane and gently lowered into the water. It took over six hours to lift around a dozen yachts and other craft into water.
At nearby Elie harbour the same crane was used to lift and lower 10 yachts into Elie harbour from their storage on the main pier, on Monday April 17th. This a activity means the local sailing season has started. Good sailing to all.
Whale horror
A dead whale was washed up on a beach prompting warnings to locals to stay away from the corpses. The 31 foot female whale came aground at North Berwick, east Lothian. A photo posted on the council’s Twitter account showed the dead whale on its side after the tide receded.
The tweet added, “We are currently arranging for its removal but the public are advised to keep a suitable distance from the whale and not allow dogs to go near the carcass.”
The area of the beach was condoned off by police and local coastguards. The dead whale was later removed by the local council and taken away for a postmortem.
RNLI awards
Volunteer RNLI crews from Arbroath and Montrose stations have been recognized for their bravery in aiding a ship in distress during storm Arwen off the coast of Angus in November 2021. The two stations launched their lifeboats at around 11pm on November 26th amid near hurricane force winds and 20ft waves.
The crews were able to aid a coaster motor vessel that was in danger of going aground at the south end of Lunan Bay after dragging its anchor.
The efforts of the 12 crew men including, Scott Murray, coxswain of Montrose lifeboat, Kevin McKay, Ryan Duncan, Graham Littlejohn, Graeme Cowie, Grant Howie, Mike Marr, coxswain of Arbroath lifeboat, Peter Willis, Jack Fraser, Rod MacLean, and Ken Bailey have been recognised with the Maritime Meritorious Service Medal.
Although the coaster was found to have no damage the crew escorted it to safer waters around four miles from land, but the vessel could only make around two knots in server conditions. The Arbroath lifeboat crew followed their colleagues to Montrose and waited for the weather to break to return home. Their boats reached Montrose at 3.30am.
Montrose lifeboat coxswain Scott Murray, said he felt incredibly honoured to be receive the award and thanked his crew for their assistance during the service. Coxswain Mike Marr of Arbroath lifeboat said the award is a testament to the immense bravery and selflessness of the crew.
Coastwatch
St Monans Coastwatch team had a busy month of April, the station carries out their daily watch duties from their lookout station working in shifts of twos. They also carried out mobile patrols along their patch of coastline from Cellerdyke to lower largo keeping seafarers and beach goers and walkers safe.
The team were alerted to a windsurfer in difficulties at Elie harbour. The team assembled and made their way to the location where they found the windsurfer was safely ashore. They also checked out reports of a kayaker in trouble at the Cellerdyke harbour. The team raced to the scene and guided the kayaker to safety.
Also Coastwatch St Monans have been granted a Licence by Ofcom to use channel 68 so local yachts, fishing boats, and other craft can contact them for weather and tide reports. John kinsman Coastwatch St Monans operations manager said this is another opportunity for the team to provide extra cover for the local seafarers.
The Coastwatch St Monans team who attended the above calls outs were operations manager John Kinsman, deputy manager Anne kinsman, John McLean, Bob McDonald, Karen Dobson, Cameron McDonald, Beth McLean, Ian Duncan, and Babette Hnup,
Lifeboat call
Kinghorn lifeboat volunteers were called out several times during April. The calls included avperson in water, off Portoblello beach, and wind surfers in trouble off the coast. All found safe and well. Another call out was to attend to a person cut off by the tide at Crammond island. On this incident Kinghorn lifeboat were backed up by nearby south Queensferry lifeboat.
Finally
Chocolate goodies… Coastwatch St Monans received a donation of chocolates goodies from Tunnock Tea Cakes company recently. The goodies consisted of Tunnocks tea cakes, Tunnocks wafers, and other biscuits. Coastwatch st Monans are very grateful to Boyd Tunnock and his company for this annual donation which gives the team snacks when on duty or on call out.
Featured image shows the Coastwatch St Monans base in the old St Monans windmill.
