Inverness Coastguard Rescue Team is part of Inverness sector which in turn is part of Aberdeen District. The district stretches from Cape Wrath to Doonies Point (just North of Stonehaven) and includes the Pentland Firth and a large part of the North Sea as well. Within the district the other sectors are:
- Wick
- Dornoch
- Moray
- Buchan
They are made up of a full time sector manager and various teams of coastguard rescue officers (volunteers) who are on call to provide search and rescue in their areas.
The maritime rescue coordination centre (MRCC) for the district is at Aberdeen. The MRCC operates shifts of coastguards (full time employees) to coordinate all maritime rescues in the district’s boundaries. They deal with 999 phone calls and VHF / VHF DSC / MF radio distress calls and then task the most appropriate rescue resources. This involves liaising with other emergency services. The operations room also deals with enquiries from the general public e.g. weather forecasts, broadcasts regular maritime safety information bulletins and activates our pagers to get us out of beds in the middle of the night, amongst many other tasks.
