Circling boat at night leads to harbour search

Launch No: 49
Craft: Spirit of the Dart. D-702
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Location: Dartmouth Harbour

The Police reported to the Coastguard that a boat with nobody on board had been seen going round in circles between the two Lower Ferry slips. The boat was a 14 ft open boat with an outboard, normally moored in Bayards Cove. The owner was located on shore and all those who should have had access to it have been contacted. The Dart Inshore Lifeboat was tasked to search the River Dart between Bayards Cove and Castle Cove, including Warfleet Creek. They were supplemented by an additional shore boat, also manned by RNLI Lifeboat crew. The All Weather Lifeboat from Torbay was on scene by 02:45 and launched their Y boat as an additional search vessel. The shore and river banks were searched by mobile Coastguard teams from Berry Head and Dartmouth. Rescue Helicopter 169 joined the search at 02:55. The river was swept in both directions by the boats and helicopter and no casualty was found. The Helicopter returned to station at 03:54 and the ALB returned to Torbay at 04:00. The ILB was diverted on her way back to recovery.

Time

Request Received 1:30am
Time at incident Deprecated: Implicit conversion from float 2.316666666666667 to int loses precision in /home/dartlifeboatorg/public_html/launches-detail.php (line 272) 2 hour, 19 minutes
Time to recovery Deprecated: Implicit conversion from float 3.4 to int loses precision in /home/dartlifeboatorg/public_html/launches-detail.php (line 272) 3 hour, 24 minutes
Back on Service 5:07am

Conditions

Sea/River State River flat with drizzle
Wind Direction West
Wind Strength 15-20 knots

Lifeboat Crew

Shore Crew

Deputy Launch Authority

Station address

RNLI Dart Lifeboat Station
Coronation Park
North Embankment
Dartmouth
Devon TQ6 9RR

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