The Banff-registered Transcend fishing boat sank near the North Cormorant oil platform at 0.45am. Yesterday morning skipper Neil Robertson, from Portknockie, engineer Ian Rigby, and crewmen John Lawson, Rito B Cueto and Welly Viajedor, all from Buckie, described their last minutes on the vessel and spoke of their gratitude towards the rescue services. It is told that the five crew members escaped with just the clothes they were wearing and this morning they had to be newly kitted out at the LHD shop, in Lerwick, before organising flights to Aberdeen.
It is informed that Shetland coastguard search and rescue helicopter SAR102 was scrambled at around 10pm on Wednesday to take pumps to the stricken vessel, but ended up airlifting the crew as their vessel went down. Engineer Ian Rigby recalled that they were fishing last night and were just shooting their nets. He told that they put on a pump off the main engine and decided to heave the nets. Then they put down a small portable pump to help the situation, but the water just kept rising.
According to Rigby they stayed on board and continued trying to save their fishing boat. They escaped from the Transcend into a small speed boat launched by the Ocean Ness. All five were then airlifted from the oil standby vessel and flown to Shetland where they were met by a volunteer from the fishermen’s mission.
