Yacht crewman in hospital dash after multi-agency rescue

A crewman from a yacht in Sound of Bute was airlifted to hospital after a multi-agency rescue.

Arran’s RNLI was part of the rescue involving vessels from RNLI Troon, Largs, Tighnabruaich and the helicopter Rescue 199 tasked to attend to a distress call from a yacht near Inchmarnock on Monday.

Responding to the call of a seriously ill crew member on the vessel, the Arran volunteer lifeboat crew launched the relief inshore lifeboat Martin Harvey, joinging the RNLI inshore lifeboat from Largs and the RNLI all-weather lifeboat from Troon, as well as the rescue helicopter in a rush to reach the crewman, who was reported to be experiencing chest pains.

Rescue helicopter 199 arrived on scene first quickly followed by Largs lifeboat which put two crew members aboard the vessel.

Once aboard they assessed the crew member and started to administer care.

After deciding that evacuating the ill crew member swiftly was of paramount importance, and due to the extremely challenging conditions, the Largs RNLI crew decided to beach their inshore lifeboat in order to allow the swift evacuation of the casualty by Rescue 199.

Following this the Largs lifeboat was refloated by the volunteer crew of the Arran inshore lifeboat. The Largs crew then towed the yacht towards Tighnabruaich before passing the tow onto the Tighnabruaich RNLI crew who took the vessel back to safe harbour.

Arran RNLI helm Martin Wood said on Monday: ‘Today’s callout was time critical; this meant we had to push the Atlantic 85 to get on scene as quickly as possible in challenging conditions. Our colleagues at Largs performed an excellent evacuation of the casualty and when refloating the Largs lifeboat both crews showed amazing teamwork and professionalism.’