Marine News
Sent in by John Kinsman, operations manager of Coastwatch St Monans, east Fife.
Lifeboat day
The town of Arbroath turned out to show its support for the towns lifeboat volunteers in the sunshine on Saturday 17th June. The annual lifeboat open day gave locals and visitors the chance to see the current lifeboats in action the water.
Crew members staged .lifesaving demonstrations in the harbour with the all-weather lifeboat and the inshore boat.
And there were congratulations too for Arbroath RNLI Guild President Mo Morrison. On the evening of the open day Mo received the BEM in the Kings Birthday Honours list.
Visitors were able to enjoy a host of fun at the harbour-side.The coastguard, sea cadets, blood bikes, BBC Scotland and much more.
Arbroath is in the middle of a row with the RNLI chiefs over plans to remove an all-weather boat from the historic station.
New station
Coastwatch St Monans has moved to new premises from their base at St Monans to nearby Elie. For the past 15 years the Coastwatch St Monans team have been based in the old historic windmill at the east of the town.
However the windmill has become unsuitable for a Coastwatch station due to dampness and lose stone work. Coastwatch operations manager John Kinsman said the old station had become unsuitable for their needs. After negotiations with Elie Harbour Trust, Coastwatch St Monans has new premises overlooking the harbour and Firth of Forth at Elie harbour.
The new premises will provide a better service and faster get away for a call out. The St Monans team moved into their new premises on 10th June and are pleased with new facilities.
Coastwatch St Monans is a non-paid volunteer lookout and rescue unit covering 12 miles of coastline from Cellerdyke to Lower Largo. The team consists of both male and female volunteers including two housewives, a vicar, and.a TV presenter. The 10 strong team is led by operations manager John Kinsman.
Operations manager John kinsman said, “The station will provide new storage for our rescue equipment, a lookout station, and a faster get away for call outs.” The station also has a new vehicle (see featured image).
Former Lifeboat Coxswain
One of Arbroath lifeboat coxswains and former garage owner Doug Matthewson has passed away aged 88. The dad of three who received the BEM for his services to Arbroath lifeboat crew started his career as a fisherman.
Doug joined the lifeboat crew aged 18 in 1953 shortly before the Arbroath lifeboat disaster. He was not on the crew that night when all but one of his colleagues perished.
Doug served 10 years as a crew member, two years as second coxswain and 22 years as coxswain before retiring at ageing 56.
For his services to the lifeboat service Doug was awarded the BEM in 1990.
Rescue video
A video of two paddle boarders being rescued of the Fife coast plays a leading role in this year’s RNLI summer safety campaigns.
Anstruther lifeboat hauled two young women to safety off Kingsbarns as they were swept three quarters of a mile out to sea in June last year.
The pair can be heard thanking crew members and saying they did not think they would manage to get back themselves.
At the time the RNLI said, “The alarm was raised in the nick of time. The incident was one of many involving paddle boarders across Scotland last year, leading to an 80 percent increase in lifeboat rescues.”
And with schools about to break up for the summer the charity has issued advice to keep people safe. The RNLI has also released a list of which Fife beaches will have lifeguards this year. Beaches covered in Fife are Elie, Leven, ST Andrews and Aberdour.
Coastwatch St Monans will also be putting on extra patrols this summer.
Coastwatch busy
Coastwatch St Monans had a busy time recently with carrying out daily lookout duty and patrols. The team attended incidents involving searching for a missing dog which had been missing for three days. In another incident the team were requested to search for a missing paddle boader off Elie beach. The paddle boarder returned safely to shore. Another call involved the team search the shoreline for missing swimmer. After a short search the swimmer was found safe and well on beach. A full Coastwatch St Monans team attended all calls using their new vehicle.
Finally
Coastwatch st Monans are gearing up to take part in this year’s St Monans sea queen day on Saturday July 15th. The annual event which has been held every year since 1956 attracts hundreds of locals and visitors to the village’s historic harbour.
