News / Double lifeboat call out
SHETLAND’S two lifeboats were both called out to help yachts in trouble over the weekend.
On Saturday morning a Norwegian yacht called Exodus with two people on board fouled its propeller with some drifting discarded fishing net while it passed the Clair field 70 miles north west of Eshaness on its way from Faroe to Baltasound.
The fishing net had jammed against the rudder makinig it impossible to manouevre the vessel.
informed Shetland coastguard but managed to make it some way to Scalloway harbour by sail before the wind dropped completely, a rare phenomenon in these isles, and the Aith lifeboat was called out to tow her in foggy conditions with visibility down to one cable.
On Sunday afternoon Lerwick lifeboat was called out to help the Norwegian yacht Osiris after the weather had picked up again with a brisk 20 knot north easterly making life difficult for the five crew who were pumping water after they sprung a leak a couple of miles south of Sumburgh.
Shetland coastguard tasked the lifeboat to assist and she escorted the yacht in to Sandwick.
Meanwhile search and rescue helicopter 102 flew out to the Transocean Prospect drilling rig 116 miles south east of Sumburgh to collect and injured crewman on Sunday morning.
Visibility was so poor in Lerwick at the time that the chopper landed at Sumburgh and was met by an ambulance which took the man to the Gilbert Bain Hospital.
In the afternoon 102 was back in the air flying a patient from the Orkney isle of Sanday to Aberdeen to go to hospital.
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