A RESCUE operation was launched on Monday afternoon after reports of a person in the sea off Redcar.

UK Coastguard requested the immediate launch of the Redcar RNLI lifeboat at 4.18pm and the lifeboat was in the water minutes later.

The Northern Echo:

Guided by police officers on the beach, the volunteer crew searched between 50 and 100 metres offshore in an area where local fishermen store crabs and lobsters in keep boxes attached to plastic marker buoys.

After a thorough search it was concluded that the emergency call had been triggered by a sighting of one of the marker buoys or keep boxes, and UK Coastguard stood down the lifeboat.

Lifeboat helmsman Cameron Bond said: ‘We searched the whole area pointed out to us by police officers on the beach who were with the first informant.

"We were right amongst the keep boxes, and once we’d checked out the location we were happy that there was no one in difficulties."

Dave Cocks, Lifeboat Operations Manager at Redcar RNLI said: "It is always best to contact UK Coastguard if someone is thought to be in difficulties in the sea or on the beach. We would much rather deal with false alarms like this than have to deal with a fatality."