LIFEBOAT volunteers investigating reports of an upturned boat hull discovered it was the carcass of a whale.

Looe RNLI pagers sounded yesterday lunchtime after a member of the public spotted what they thought was a white, overturned hull drifting in Looe Bay.

After a low tide launch along the riverbed into a fresh south westerly wind, the crew headed out into the bay to start searching. Meanwhile, members of Looe Coastguard rescue team met at Plaidy, just east of Looe, with the person who had called the Coastguard initially. The team were able to see the object through binoculars and passed information over VHF radio to guide the crew towards the object’s location, which was further out in the bay.

“As our crew approached the object, which was drifting half a mile south east of the Rannies cardinal marker, they were able to see it was the decomposing carcass of a whale,” said an RNLI spokesperson.

“The whale was approx. 8m in length and at least 1.5 m of the carcass was out of the water. After reporting their find and current position to the coastguards, our crew were stood down and returned to station.

“Whilst washing down and refuelling the Atlantic 85 for its next service, our crew commented that were preparing themselves for the worst, as from a distance the object looked like the upturned hull of a yacht. Whilst they were relieved that there were no persons in difficulty, they were saddened to find a dead whale.”

The crew also said the first informant did the right thing by immediately contacting the coastguards when they saw the object in the bay.