A CROWD gathered at Arbroath harbour yesterday to watch the rather surreal scene as a creel boat that sank on Tuesday was towed back into port.

All that was visible of the ill-fated Northern Star, as it was towed in by the creel boat Tern and the Arbroath relief lifeboat Bingo Lifeline, was its radio antenna.

Skipper Bob Teviotdale, who was alone on the boat when it capsized and sank, was plucked from the sea after crewmen aboard another local boat were alerted to his plight.

Tommy Yule, the lifeboat coxswain, said, “Three crew members who were in the station at lunchtime on Tuesday actually witnessed Bob’s boat capsizing and our mechanic Allan Russell initiated the launch procedure for the all-weather and inshore boats and notified the coastguard.

“When Bob realised his boat was taking on water he alerted Danny Smith and his son, close by on the Shamara, and they got him out of the water—we reckon it took less than a minute for the Northern Star to sink.

’We tried to tow the boat in with our all-weather boat but she wouldn’t shift, so we did what we could to retrieve the floating debris as well as marking the position with buoys and notifying the coastguard of the location as she was a potential hazard for boats entering or leaving the harbour.

“She sank a third of a mile out, just north of the leading lights that mark the approach to the harbour.

“On Tuesday evening, our training night, the inshore lifeboat made several trips out to the Northern Star at low tide and the crew recovered a fair number of Bob’s creels and a lot of rope and other gear we thought would make the salvage operation a lot easier.”

Early yesterday morning the inshore lifeboat Duncan Ferguson took two local divers to the scene and stood by as five flotation bags were attached to lift the sunken boat at high tide.

Shortly before 2pm both lifeboats accompanied the Tern, with the divers on board, to the scene. Air was pumped into the flotation bags and, after a hitch when the Northern Star briefly rose from the seabed then sank again, the slow tow back to the harbour began.

Mr Yule said, “The divers attached two lines to the Northern Star from the Tern and we took the Tern under tow to give it extra power and steering ability, then headed back into harbour at between a half and one and a half knots.

“Our original plan was to beach the boat beside the lifeboat station but she was moving well enough so we cast our line off from the Tern and, helped by other lifeboat crew members, harbour staff and members of the fishing community, got her alongside the oil quay.

“All things considered it was a busy and interesting couple of days for the lifeboat crews and we were happy to help a local fisherman who had been unfortunate enough to lose his boat.

“Because it was a navigational hazard and the weather forecast wasn’t good it had to be recovered quickly—and without our assistance, I don’t think that could have been achieved.”

With the vessel secured, the RNLI assisted harbour staff in placing absorbent floating booms across the entrance to the oil quay to limit the effects of fuel oil and other fluids leaking from the Northern Star.

It is expected that the Northern Star will be lifted from the harbour by crane today so the extent of the damage can be assessed.