The long history of the RNLI and the life of a great Scots poet were recalled during the formal naming ceremony for Arbroath’s new lifeboat.
Members of the volunteer crew, institute officials and VIP guests gathered at the harbour on Saturday to officially welcome the D-759 Robert Fergusson.
The inshore lifeboat has been named after one of the first poets to write in both Scots “leed” and English.
Burns called him his “elder brother in misfortune, by far my elder brother in the muse” when he commissioned Fergusson’s headstone at his pauper’s grave in Edinburgh.
Funding for the D-class boat was provided by Andrew Ferguson, who spoke at the ceremony.
Chairman of the Lifeboat Management Group, Lt Col Ian Ballantyne, said it was a “proud and satisfying moment” to see the crew handed such a capable rescue craft, the ins and outs of which were explained by divisional operations manager Paul Jennings.
Mr Ferguson paid tribute to a “remarkable intellect and talent”, who he said would have been eminent with Robert Burns if he had lived longer than 24 years.
Mr Ferguson’s involvement with the RNLI began in 1992 when he had become Master of one of the old City of London companies, the Worshipful Company of Coachmakers and Coach Harness Makers, exactly 200 years after Lionel Lukin, designer of the first lifeboat, had been Master.
In commemoration of Lukin’s designs, Mr Ferguson made the RNLI his charity of choice during his year of office and the money raised was used to fund Coachmakers of London, a D-class inshore lifeboat which went on station in Angus in 1993.
In 2005 the replacement D-class was launched at Arbroath, and named Duncan Ferguson in honour of Mr Ferguson’s father and in commemoration of the family’s origins in Perthshire.
Hugh Fogarty, the RNLI’s head of operations (operational support), accepted the boat on the institute’s behalf.