Byline: At 1139 hours On Friday 3rd May Helensburgh RNLI Lifeboat was launched to respond to two back-to-back incidents.

Page Content: The first was to a vessel aground on the Cockle Bank at Port Glasgow which had two persons on board; although no request for assistance had been received from the crew of the grounded vessel, the Coastguard wished to confirm that they were ok.  As the grounded vessel, a white hulled cabin cruiser, was several hundred metres outside the navigation channel, and due to the state of the tide, two lifeboat crew members had to wade across the sandbanks towards the grounded cruiser. Once it was established that the two men on board did not require any assistance, the lifeboat crew members returned to the lifeboat.

The lifeboat then attended the second incident, a tug reported to be sinking at the mouth of Loch Goil. The tug was low in the water and clearly taking in water.  It was unmanned and on a mooring.  As the lifeboat crew was not able to gain access to the locked vessel they were unable to investigate the cause of the problem or take any action.  It was therefore agreed that the lifeboat would return to base and that a commercial salvage operation would be undertaken later.

At 2206 hours the same day the Lifeboat was again launched after Belfast Coastguard received a report from a resident of Rhu village that there was a fire on board a yacht in Rhu Bay. Despite a thorough search of the area, during which a number of illumination flares were fired, nothing untoward was found. The conclusion was that this was a false alarm with good intent. The lifeboat returned to base and was reported ready for service again at 2300 hours.