Loch Lomond Water Ski Club 2024 fancy dress fund-raiser

Covid excepted, the Loch Lomond Water Ski Club’s annual New Year’s Day fancy dress event has been a firm fixture on the local calendar for many years – and in customary fashion, 2024 was welcomed in on Monday by a combination of intrepid skiers, fantastic costumes and a properly festive atmosphere.

Ashleigh Copeland (Image: Freelancer)

Organisers David Henderson and Campbell Cavana (Image: Freelancer)

The long-standing event sees locals and those from further afield don their favourite fancy dress costume to raise money for charity.

The club’s members choose a different good cause each year to receive the proceeds from the event, and it was particularly appropriate this year that the Loch Lomond Rescue Boat was chosen as 2024’s good cause.

Dougie Potts (Image: Freelancer)

Naomi and Lucy Gilbert (Image: Freelancer)

And while not everyone was quite feeling brave enough to put on a costume and venture out on to the loch itself, there were plenty of spectators lining the bonnie banks at the Cameron House Marina to watch the action and add their generous donations to help out the rescue boat.

As the sun set on the old year, it brought down the curtain on a busy 2023 for the rescue boat and its crew, who attended a total of 67 callouts during the year – the last of them to rescue a walker who had become stranded on the West Highland Way on December 19 amid a downturn in the weather.

Stuart MacDougall (Image: Freelancer)

Crew of the Loch Lomond Rescue Boat (Image: Freelancer)

To find out more about the rescue boat and its recent callouts, as well as how to make a donation of your own, see lochlomondrescueboat.org.