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Safety boat sparked into action after empty dinghy spotted

The LochWatch boat volunteers
The LochWatch boat volunteers

An empty dinghy being blown about a Highland loch triggered a new rescue boat being launched to investigate.

A member of the public alerted police when they saw the small boat with no-one aboard in Loch Awe, Argyll.

The rescue boat purchased by safety group LochWatch Loch Awe sprang into action shortly after the alarm was raised around 6pm on Monday.

The boat was able to find the dinghy quickly and establish that no-one was in danger, avoiding a major search operation being launched.

LochWatch volunteer Iain MacKinnon said: “There was a report of a dinghy drifting in the loch near Kilchurn Castle.

“The report went to the police and they in turn contacted LochWatch.

“It was windy and it had been blown against the east shore, which is adjacent to the Inveraray road.

“The LochWatch boat was able to reach it quickly and establish that there was nobody on it. There was no report of anyone going missing.

“It meant that we could get the situation resolved quite quickly. The area of shore was quite far from the road and it would have taken a good hour to get to it on foot. It saved a lot of resources.”

Sergeant Mike Wood of Oban police said: “We were alerted by a concerned member of the public about the empty dinghy. We set in motion our LochWatch protocols and as a result we were able to establish that everything was in order and no-one was in danger.”

LochWatch Loch Awe was set up after the deaths of Glasgow men Craig Currie, 30, Steven Carty, 42, his brother William Carty, 47, and Thomas Douglas, 36. They drowned in the early hours of March 21, 2009.

They were trying to cross the loch in a small boat to their campsite from the Tight Line pub in Loch Awe village. Emergency service teams on the shore could hear the men’s cries for help from the water but were unable to reach them in the thick fog.

LochWatch bought the boat with £6,000 raised by the men’s families.