Ragnvald makes poignant journey in memory of missing fisherman Joe Masson

Fraserburgh skipper Joe Masson, 73, was last seen on his creel boat near Cairnbulg Harbour in Aberdeenshire on 16 October 2021.Joe had worked on a wide variety of commercial trawlers throughout his 50 year fishing career.

He had always owned a small fishing boat for use as a hobby and to earn extra money between commercial trawling trips, and had left Cairnbulg harbour on the morning of 16 October 2021 on board his creel fishing vessel Goodway.

He was later seen working a fleet of creels outside of the harbour but his phone lost connection from the network at 1.40pm.

When he did not return home at his usual time, his family became concerned and raised the alarm and an air and sea search and a search involving police, HMS Coastguard, the MOD and the RNLI was launched that evening.

The upturned hull of Goodway was discovered close to Cairnbulg Briggs reef but Mr Masson could not be located despite the full scale search continuing through out the night and the whole of the next day.

An investigation by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) later concluded that his boat may have overturned while he was trying to free creels that had become entangled in rocks.

Joe’s body was never found at the time and it wasn’t until March 2025, almost three and a half years later that it was discovered in an isolated part of Norway.

Ragnvald Larsson was part of an international team tasked with clearing up oil spillages in an isolated part of Norway when they found Joe’s body.

‘My partner and I were in a boat and we thought we saw a rescue dummy lying on a rock but when we got closer we discovered it was a man. We looked inside his suit and he was wearing a ‘Cancer UK’ T shirt, and this made us think that he wasn’t local.

'We told our team leader who came and took a photograph and sent it to the police Shortly after a helicopter arrived and took Joe’s body to Trondheim where it was examined. They took DNA samples and searched an Interpol Database of missing persons.

'After two weeks the police got back it touch to tell us who Joe was and where he came from.

I' thought about this episode a lot and wondered what kind of a man Joe was, what kind of a life he had and where he had came from.'

A few months ago one of Ragnvald’s friends an oil worker was working alongside Pete Strachan from Fraserburgh when he mentioned that his friend was the person who had found the Scotsman who had been missing for over three years. Pete knew Joe’s family well and got Ragnvald’s contact details from his friend and passed them on to Joe’s brother Edwin who then phoned Ragnvald.

Ragnvald said that he would like to visit Joe’s grave and a meeting was set up, so a few weeks ago Ragnvald and Inger, his girlfriend made the trip to Fraserburgh and met with Edwin and his wife Eleanor.

They visited the Cairnbulg and Inverallochy Cemetery and Ragnvald met other members of Edwin’s family, including his sister Edie, and placed flowers on Joe’s grave.

Then they had a short trip to Cairnbulg Harbour to see where Joe had fished out of before heading for Fraserburgh RNL lifeboat station where they met full-time coxswain Vic Sutherland and Graeme Duthie who was the duty coxswain for the weekend when Joe went missing.

Over a cup of coffee they heard fondly remembered stories of Joe who was well known and well liked and a popular character around the harbour.

Graeme also recalled the night when the pagers went off and the lifeboat volunteers raced to the station. ‘It was a bit of a shock when we heard it was Joe, who was missing he was a popular guy, everyone knew him.’

‘It was a pitch black night and in the early hours of the morning the rescue helicopter spotted something in the water beside the wreck of the Sovereign and asked us to take a look. It was too shallow to take the big Trent lifeboat in so I deployed the smaller XP boat with volunteers Jason Flett and Grant Morrison aboard to take a closer look.

They located Joe’s upturned boat but there was no sign of Joe.

The full scale search carried on throughout the night and all through the next day in the hope that Joe could be found and involved three lifeboats, Fraserburgh, Macduff and Peterhead, coastguard teams, the police, MoD, an helicopter and a fixed wing aircraft.’

‘All these years we never knew what happened to Joe but when he was found and taken home at least we had a bit of closure. It was good to meet Ragnvald and his girlfriend and hear his story’ said Edwin ‘He’s a very nice person’

On making the trip to Scotland to visit Joe’s grave and some of his family Ragnvald said that it was a bit of closure for him as well “I thought about it a lot and it seemed the right thing to do. Edwin and Eleanor made me very welcome and it was good of them to take us to the Cemetery where I laid flowers on Joe’s grave and then to Cairnbulg boat haven to see where he fished out from. I also was pleased to meet the guys from the lifeboat at the lifeboat station, Graeme, Vic and Billy and hear the stories from them and then of course I was able to tell them about how we found Joe.”

Notes to Editors

• Fraserburgh RNLI Lifeboat Station has a proud history of saving lives at sea, operating since 1858 (with lifeboat operations recorded locally from 1806)
• The Tamar-class all-weather lifeboat John Buchanan Barr (16-21) replaced the station's long-serving Trent-class Willie and May Gall (14-34) in spring 2026.
• Thirteen Fraserburgh Lifeboatmen have died in three separate tragedies in 1919, 1953 and 1970.
• The 140,000 life saved by the RNLI since records began was recorded in June 2012 when Fraserburgh Lifeboat Willie and May Gall rescued a kitesurfer who had been entangled in his lines and was being dragged out to sea.
• Key facts about the RNLI: The Royal National Lifeboat Institution is the charity that saves lives at sea. Volunteers provide a 24-hour search and rescue service across the UK and Republic of Ireland coasts. Independent of government, the charity relies on voluntary donations and legacies. Since 1824, RNLI lifesavers have saved over 146,700 lives.

RNLI Media Contacts

Billy Watson, Fraserburgh RNLI Volunteer Lifeboat Press Officer - 07564468304 [email protected]

Natasha Rushby: Regional Communications Manager for Scotland [email protected] - 07826 900639

Martin Macnamara, RNLI Regional Communications Lead for Scotland, 07920 365929, [email protected]

RNLI Press Office, 01202 336789, [email protected]

Key facts about the RNLI

The RNLI is the charity that saves lives at sea. Its volunteers provide a 24-hour search and rescue service around the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland coasts. The RNLI operates 238 lifeboat stations in the UK and Ireland and more than 240 lifeguard units on beaches around the UK and Channel Islands. The RNLI is independent of Coastguard and government and depends on voluntary donations and legacies to maintain its rescue service. Since the RNLI was founded in 1824, its lifeboat crews and lifeguards have saved over 146,700 lives.

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