Search called off for two missing Isle of Lewis fishermen as tributes paid to crew of lost vessel Kilda

HM Coastguard stood down its search for Norman Murray, 40, and Murdo Morrison, 23, on Thursday evening after an extensive operation involving aircraft, two helicopters, six rescue teams and a lifeboat failed to locate the men or their vessel, the Kilda. Skipper Douglas Craigie, 49, was pulled from the water near Port of Ness at 2:45am on Wednesday after the boat failed to return to port on Tuesday night. The three Isle of Lewis men are all local to the island, and the tight-knit community has been left in shock by the tragedy.

Craigie died just days before his 50th birthday, which would have fallen on Thursday — the same day his family began planning his funeral instead of a party.

Isles MP Torcuil Crichton said Murray is one of the Men of Ness who harvest young gannets in a centuries-old tradition, and that Morrison was exactly 'the kind of young person we try to encourage to go to sea'.

'The sea has no mercy at times,' one friend wrote online. 'Some folk were just born legends, my skipper you certainly were.'