[T]he volunteer crew from the RNLI’s Barrow station launched both their all-weather and inshore lifeboats this morning, Tuesday 14th August 2018, to undertake a search of the coastline off the west side of Walney Island.
The call for assistance came from HM Coastguard at Holyhead at 11:10am. The information received was that a member of the public had reported seeing a person or object in the water at a position west of Walney Airfield.
The report also stated that the person or object was being cut off by the rising tide.
A Barrow RNLI spokesman said: “Given the uncertainty of the exact location to be searched, coupled with poor visibility, it was decided to launch both lifeboats. The crew was paged and the inshore lifeboat, Vision of Tamworth, was launched first with Dave Kell and Ben Jackson on board. The all-weather lifeboat, Grace Dixon, was launched a few minutes later under the command of Shaun Charnley assisted by five crew members.
“The two lifeboats made their way to the scene and commenced a search of the area. HM Coastguard used weather and tidal data to perform drift calculations and advised the Grace Dixon to maintain a baseline one mile offshore.
“Meanwhile, the Vision of Tamworth ran a search pattern between the shore and the Grace Dixon. An area approximately half a mile either side of the last known sighting was searched. Furness Coastguard were also in attendance and conducted a search of the shoreline. After an extensive search nothing was found, and HM Coastguard instructed the lifeboats to stand down shortly before 1pm.”
The lifeboats returned to the Lifeboat Station where they were cleaned and made ready for the next launch.
The wind at the time of the incident was south-westerly, Force 4-5, and the high tide was due at 2:28pm with a height of 9.6 metres.