LOOE RNLI volunteer crews responded to reports of a drifting and unoccupied dinghy said to be drifting off the coast earlier this week.
The drama unfolded on Tuesday morning (March 22) when Falmouth Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) received a 999 call reporting an unoccupied black and blue dinghy drifting off Portwrinkle.
At 8.50am crew pagers sounded and Looe’s RNLI volunteer crew launched the charity’s Atlantic 85 inshore lifeboat Sheila and Dennis Tongue II. Shortly afterwards the D Class inshore lifeboat Ollie Naismith was also launched and both lifeboats made best speed to Portwrinkle.
After arriving on scene, the crews started to search for the dinghy. After a short search, they spotted an object in the water and recovered a deflated black and blue rubber ring into the lifeboat.
After confirming with Falmouth MRCC that the object matched the description given by the first informant, the lifeboats were stood down to return to the lifeboat station with the rubber ring.
The Looe volunteer crew said afterward that the first informant did the right thing in contacting the coastguard to report their concerns. Lifeboat crews would always prefer to launch and find that everything is okay rather than learn later that someone was in difficulty and needed assistance.
In this case the accurate description and location given by the caller enabled the crews to recover the object from the water and confirm no one was in difficulties.