The Buckie Lifeboat had to undertake a pre-Christmas launch on Tuesday when a fishing boat ran into trouble on the Moray Firth.
A father and son crew were stranded when the engine on their boat broke down – fortunately on a day when the sea state was relatively calm.
The vessel’s engine stopped working shortly after 10am when about a mile east of Findochty.
Buckie Lifeboat was launched and quickly located the boat, taking it under tow and returning to the harbour within half an hour.
An Aberdeen Coastguard spokesman said: “It was a routine launch – it appears that water had managed to get into the fuel of the fishing boat.”