By Ralph Barnett

MEMBERS OF a well-known Arbroath family were in mourning again last night after suffering their second tragic loss in six years.

The body of creel fisherman Dennis Cargill (60), who with his wife Hazel ran the Commercial Inn in Shorehead for many years, was recovered from the sea off Auchmithie yesterday.

It followed a massive search operation after Mr Cargill fell overboard from his boat.

In 2001, Mr and Mrs Cargill’s only son Colin, who was just 31, died in his sleep when he suffered a stroke while working on an offshore oil installation in the North Sea.

Mrs Cargill said last night, “I think I only really believed it was Dennis when we went through to the mortuary in Dundee and saw him.

“We are really just so grateful to all the people who went out to try and rescue him—all the emergency services and the other fishermen—and for at least bringing him back to us.

“Dennis went out at about quarter to six in the morning, which was about usual for him.

“The lad who has been going out with him, Neil Foster, slept in and missed the boat and he is just in bits.

“He has been up to see us and is in a terrible state but we don’t blame him in any way at all for what happened.

“Dennis was involved with the sea all of his life and loved it.”

Mr Cargill was born and brought up in Auchmithie and worked on fishing boats before working on the rigs for 24 years.

Mrs Cargill continued, “He was a crewman on the Arbroath lifeboat for 16 years and the whole family was involved with a crew wives’ club, things for the kids and so on.

“He got his own boat not long after Colin died and he wanted to call it after him but, after talking about it, we settled on the name Boy Joshua, after Colin’s wee boy.

“Dennis was a wonderful husband, father and grandfather and father-in-law and was just a really good and popular man who got on with everyone.”

Mrs Cargill said, “We still can’t really believe that he’s gone and we would like to express our gratitude to all those involved in the search—the response was absolutely tremendous.”

Mr Cargill went out alone early yesterday morning on the Boy Joshua to recover creels off the Whiting Ness headland to the north of Arbroath.

How he came to fall into the water is not known but, once his disappearance was reported, the emergency services—backed by many other members of the town’s close-knit fishing community—made every effort to find him.

The alarm was raised shortly after 10.30am when local creel fisherman Tommy Yule, the coxswain of the Arbroath RNLI lifeboat, saw Mr Cargill’s boat anchored to its creel line and apparently unoccupied about a mile off Whiting Ness.

Mr Yule went alongside in his boat, the Sharon Rose and, finding no-one on board, raised the alarm.

The first at the scene was the Arbroath RNLI in-shore lifeboat, whose crew carried out a search of the area.

Finding no sign of Mr Cargill, a crew member, with Mr Yule’s younger brother Donald, boarded the Boy Joshua and a major search was begun.

The all-weather lifeboats and in-shore boats from the RNLI stations at Arbroath and Montrose were joined in the search by the Broughty Ferry RNLI lifeboat, and Maritime and Coastguard Agency personnel from bases at Arbroath, Montrose and Carnoustie patrolled the clifftop path north of Arbroath.

Two RAF search and rescue Sea King helicopters joined the effort and, as word of the incident spread among the community, around a dozen other vessels—fishing and leisure craft—also joined in.

Co-ordinated from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency centre at Crail, the searchers covered a wide expanse of the sea for around five hours before Mr Cargill’s body was spotted several miles north-east of Arbroath by one of the helicopter crews.

The Sea King hovered over the area until the Broughty Ferry lifeboat, which was closest to the spot, made its way to recover the body, accompanied by the Arbroath in-shore boat.

Mr Cargill’s body was transferred to the Arbroath all-weather lifeboat and brought back to shore.

Due to the sensitive nature of the operation, Tayside Police cordoned off the section of the harbour around the lifeboat station to allow the necessary arrangements to be carried out.