| Plans for a pleasant day out in his speedboat turned into a nightmare experience for Arbroath man Rabbie Mills today, when the Range Rover he was using to tow the boat trailer ended up stuck fast as the tide came in at the West Sands.
Not only that, but the recovery vehicle he called to try and pull the Range Rover clear, also became a casualty of the incoming waves.
By noon, scarcely two hours after the drama began, Rabbie and the many people who tried in vain to assist, were forced to admit defeat and leave the submerged vehicles to the mercy of the sea until the next low tide.
Rabbie, a former North Sea worker who broke his back in an offshore accident, said, “I just had the speedboat done up and I had it out for the first time at the weekend and it was running really well. When I saw how good the weather was today I decided to take it out again and this goes and happens.”
Recovery vehicles from Arbroath and Montrose were called in to try and pull the trapped vehicles back to dry land, but a combination of wind, wave and the fact they were sunk deep into the sand meant little could be achieved.
As a last resort a tractor was summoned from the nearby Red Lion Caravan Park but, by then, both the Range Rover and the pick-up were beyond help. |
