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Man dies after boat sinks off Shoreham, Sussex Man dies, two missing feared dead after boat sinks off south coast
(about 2 hours later)
A man has died after a boat sank off the Sussex coast, police have said. One man has died and two more are missing feared dead after a boat sank off the south coast.
A search involving lifeboats and helicopters was launched on Sunday morning after the vessel went down near Shoreham, shortly before 6am. A major search and rescue operation was launched after the vessel went down off Shoreham, West Sussex, in the early hours of Sunday.
Sussex police said the boat was believed to have left Brighton marina with four men onboard. The alarm was raised shortly before 6am when a fourth man was discovered by a fishing boat crew “clinging to a buoy” two miles west of the town’s harbour, the coastguard said.
Police were assisting the coastguard “after a man was pulled alive from the sea by fishermen just after dawn on Sunday”, said a spokesman for the force. It is thought man, a 45-year-old from London believed to be Romanian, could have been in the Channel for several hours.
“The body of one man has been recovered from the sea and brought ashore by coastguard helicopter. A search of sea and coastline is under way to find any survivors,” the spokesman said. He was rushed to shore and taken to hospital suffering from the effects of the cold.
Lifeboats from Brighton and Shoreham and two coastguard helicopters are being assisted by other local boats in the search for the missing men. Matt Pavitt, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s south-east coastal operations area commander, told the BBC: “Anybody who spends that length of time, numerous hours potentially, in the sea without any protective equipment – at this time of year it’s a nice day but the sea is still cold – is very, very lucky to be alive.”
The rescued man was found in the water by a fishing vessel two miles from Shoreham harbour at about 5.50am, HM Coastguard said. Up to 15 boats and ships, aided by two coastguard helicopters from Lydd and Lee-on-the-Solent, were involved in the search before it was suspended early on Sunday afternoon.
The 45-year-old from London was discovered clinging to a buoy west of Shoreham, police said. They included lifeboats from Shoreham and Brighton and about 10 vessels from the nearby Rampion offshore wind farm.
“It is thought that the boat may have left Brighton marina around midnight and the incident may have happened a couple of hours later, but the facts are not clear at this time,” the spokesman said. Coastguard rescue teams from Shoreham and Littlehampton were also involved.
The dead man was found at about 8.15am. An investigation involving the Marine Accident Investigation Branch has been launched. “Following an extensive search of the area using multiple assets nothing further has been found at this time so the decision has been made to suspend the search pending further information,” said Andy Jenkins, a coastguard controller.
“A review of the incident details will be ongoing through the rest of the day.”
An investigation involving the Marine Accident Investigation Branch has been launched.
Pavitt said it would look into suggestions that the boat, thought to have set off from Brighton marina with four people aboard, collided with another vessel, but it was too early to confirm what happened.
He said that whatever did occur had been very quick, as “there was no distress call, no one raised the alarm until the chap was found this morning”.
A Sussexpolice spokesman said: “It is believed that he was with three other men on a boat out of Brighton marina.
The body of one man has been recovered from the sea and brought ashore by coastguard helicopter.
“A search of sea and coastline is under way to find any survivors.”
“It is thought that the boat may have left Brighton marina around midnight and the incident may have happened a couple of hours later, but the facts are not clear at this time.”
The body of the dead man was found at about 8.15am.
The search also combed beaches between Brighton and Worthing on the Sussex coast.