Possible man overboard from drifting tender

Launch No: 326
Craft: Spirit of the Dart. D-702
Saturday, 14 April 2018
Location: Coombe Point. Start Bay
Photo: Crispin Brabner RNLI crew
Yacht tender drifting off Coombe Point, Start Bay

As the lifeboat Operations team were gathering at the lifeboat station for the annual free life jacket check for local boat owners the pagers sounded. A 3 metre yacht tender was reported floating off Coombe Point. The Dart D class inshore lifeboat was requested to launch by the Coastguard at Falmouth as it was a possible man overboard situation. The engine of the tender was in the down position and the cover was off. There was one paddle in the boat. The volunteer lifeboat crew conducted a sea and coastline search between Coombe Point and Dartmouth Castle in conjunction with the land based Dartmouth Coastguard SAR team.
A faint name was found on the tender and the harbour Authority found the owner of the yacht on the Town Pontoon about to sail to Plymouth. He reported that the engine of the tender had failed the previous evening and he had paddled himself ashore and left the tender tied up.

Time

Request Received 8:49am
Time at incident 1 hour, 0 minutes
Time to recovery Deprecated: Implicit conversion from float 1.6666666666666667 to int loses precision in /home/dartlifeboatorg/public_html/launches-detail.php (line 272) 1 hour, 40 minutes
Back on Service 10:45am

Conditions

Sea/River State Calm
Wind Direction Southeast
Wind Strength 9 knots Force 3
Launch to drifting tender off Coombe Point

Map: trackaship universal

Lifeboat Crew

Rich Eggleton (Helm)
Crispin Brabner
Aaron Spicer

Shore Crew

Jerry Gilby (Tractor Driver)
Caleb Brown
Katy Sarah
Dani Lodge
Tom Shanley

Deputy Launch Authority

Station address

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

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