Glasgow And Ships Of The Clyde

Ardrossan Pilot Boat rescues a young man from a frail raft

While the Ardrossan pilot cutter was proceeding to attend a vessel, captain Cunningham, the pilot, heard

faint cries in the darkness coming between the breakwater and the Horse Island.    Altering his course, the

pilot found a youth standing on a frail raft and apparently suffering from exposure.

The youth David Burns, of Saltcoats was taken aboard the cutter.    He had been amusing himself at

the Ardrossan shore propelling the raft with an impoverished paddle, when the ebbing tide and southerly

wind and swell carried the raft out towards the channel

Darkness began to fall and to make his plight more perilous the youth lost his paddle.    Had the pilot boat

not appeared on the scene the chance of a rescue would have been remote, as the course of the raft

would have taken it clear through the channel and out to sea