Four fishing vessels and a lifeboat have saved another fishing vessel after it started to sink off the north coast of the Isle of Rum this morning.
At 5:53am today the four crew on board the fishing vessel Caralisa issued a mayday call, two miles northwest of the Isle of Rum, after the they discovered water in the hold and engine room. Due to poor radio communications in the area, the Caralisas mayday was relayed to Stornoway Coastguard by the fishing vessel Rebecca Janeen which was one mile away.
The Rebecca Janeen and another fishing vessel, Ocean Hunter, rushed to the scene and the Mallaig RNLI lifeboat was launched. Two other fishing vessels, Viking Borg and Amethyst overheard the distress call and also headed to the Caralisa to render assistance.
The Ocean Hunter was the first to reach the Caralisa, followed by the Rebecca Janeen. In all, four pumps were put onto the Caralisa to try to stop the ingress of water. These pumps managed to stop the water level from getting any higher but it took the arrival of extra pumps from Mallaig Lifeboat for the water level to start receding.
Watch Manager, Martin Collins said:
The Caralisa is now under tow by the Mallaig Lifeboat and is being taken to Mallaig Harbour where preparations are being made to put the vessel on a slipway.
All the fishing vessels who took part this morning are to be congratulated on an excellent job. Without the combined efforts of all four fishing vessels and the lifeboat theres a good chance that the Caralise would have sunk.
We now have the best outcome to an incident, all the crew are safe and well and the boat has been saved.
