Today, at Cruachan Power Station Visitor Centre on Loch Awe, the LochWatch committee unveiled the patrol boat which will be launched for next season on this huge, beautiful and dangerously moody freshwater loch, the longest in the UK.
The committee, including founder Iain Mackinnon, Treasurer Murray Humphries, Councillor Roddy McCuish, Councillor Louise Glen-Lee, Jamie McGrigor MSP – have taken admirably practical and clear sighted decision to get a patrol boat on the loch as quickly as possible, following the tragic loss of four Glasgow pike fishermen on the loch, near Kilchurn castle in 2009.
The families and friends of those fishermen – brothers, William and Steven Carty, Thomas Douglas and Craig Currie, – remembered above on the memorial erected at their familiar camping place on Loch Aweside, raised £8,000 for a rescue boat on the loch in memory of the lost – and handed it over to LochWatch.
The cost of the ideal boat for this job is well over £200k but, given the nature of the campaign, has been cut back to a barebone £150k by Orkney Boats.
The first great decision of the LochWatch committee has been not to wait until they had managed to raise such a substantial amount but to get the best possible boat they could afford just now, capable of getting to grips quickly with a protective role on Loch Awe.
This boat cost £6k. It will patrol the loch, identifying and instructing fishing folk whose practices afloat are clearly putting them at risk- including drinking on the water.
On some patrols, Iain and Murray will be joined by a local member of Police Scotland – and Oban’s Inspector Julie McLeish, was present today to signal the commitment of the force to this initiative.
The watersports industry has been very supportive, with GaelForce doing a deal with LochWatch, supplying them wiht lifejackets at cost. This allowed LochWatch to sell the jackets at a reduced retail price to fishermen and watersports enthusiasts, seeing something like 100 lives safer on the water than they would have been.
Murray says that his and Iain’s work on the loch on the need to wear lifejackets when afloat led to some fisherfolk ashore scrambling into their lifejackets just to go to the lavatories at the Ardbrecknish Boat Centre, muttering that the ‘Lifejacket Patrol’s around’.
Gaelforce has also donated Night Vision kit, designed to make quicker identification of the presence on the water or shoreside of missing persons. This kit is in shared use by the Oban police force for the same purpose.
Councillor Roddy McCuish and Councillor Louise Glen-Lee are wholly supportive of this necessary initiative and both worked to make sure today’s event is brought to the attention of as many members of the public as possible. The media have been energetically helpful in this, with The Oban Times and the Press & Journal present this afternoon as well as ourselves.
The event that underlined the imperative for this initiative happened on Saturday 21st March 2009, when the lack of a freshwater loch rescue boat left members of the rescue services helpless on the lochside, listening to the cries of the four drowning men, echoing in thick fog, not far away but too far away.
One of those would-be rescuers was Iain Mackinnon, part of the team who later attempted resuscitation on the two bodies brought ashore later that night.
During his own long connection with the loch, as a fisherman, Iain Mackinon has pulled no fewer than 20 bodies from the loch. He knows more than any of the rest of would want to know about the dangers of this loch; and of the terminally foolish connection of drinking with being on the water.
Iain’s founding of LochWatch Loch Awe has been driven by his experience of the avoidable losses of life that have so often occurred there.
He says that in very many cases of such loss, drink is part of the picture. This does not mean that these people have necessarily been drunk, although some will have been - but their judgment will have been impaired, leading to fatally poor decision taking in emergency situations.
Iain Mackinnon and Murray Humphries talk of regularly seeing boats on the loch with fishermen, mostly ‘townies’ drinking cans of beer at 10am. They report that when parties arrive to camp and fish for the weekend, the first thing they do is get the crate of lager into the water to cool it.
Iain, seen above left with Murray, is holding the statement bottle of Irn Bru with which they christened the LochWatch boat this afternoon.
The slogan for LochWatch Loch Awe is sharp: ‘Don’t Drink and Drown’, alongside: ‘Save a life. Yours.’
There is a second element of new public safety systems that LochWatch has already put in place on Loch Awe. Residents and businesses around the shores of the loch have a phone number to ring at amy hour f the day or night if they see or hear anyone of=n trouble on the water.
That phone number belongs to David Cook, a hospitality sector businessman on the loch and, driven by the interests of his clients, determined to do what he can to make safer their experiences on the loch. When the phone rings and an emergency is reported, David – if weather and water conditions permit – will take his own boat and get to the area of the emergency situation at best speed.
Donations
This strategically focused initiative to improve safety on one of Argyll’s multitude of freshwater lochs needs donations for three urgent purposes:
- to pay for the running costs of the patrol boat, including the ever-rising cost of fuel;
- to pay for the radar and scanner they will need to have in place by next season, to speed the locating of persons missing on the loch;
- to help raise the £150k to acquire the best possible boat for rescue as well as patrol work on this, the longest freshwater loch in the UK.
Donations can be made by contacting Iain Mackinnon by email on: imackoban@btinternet.com or via the Loch Awe Patrol Boat website here
Name the boat
The LochWatch Loch Awe committee would appreciate help in naming this boat.
There are fairly numerous stories, sightings, photographs and videos of a Loch Awe monster – but these might not be the most appropriate source of a name for this boat.
The committee is looking for something connected with Loch Awe, its surrounding area, or Argyll.
All suggestions will be welcomed and should be emailed to Iain Mackinnon or to the Loch Awe Patrol Boat website – both as given immediately above, under ‘Donations’.