The Hayling Island voluntary lifeboat crew were called out just after 6.20am on Sunday 11 July to join the Coastguard and the police in a search for a young man who was reported missing after he took his friend’s canoe out for a paddle.

Both the Hayling Island inshore lifeboats were launched. As it was only approximately 90 minutes after low water, the Atlantic 85 lifeboat ,Derrick Battle, could only searched in the deeper waters of Chichester Harbour whilst the smaller D Class, Amanda, James & Ben, was able to search the shallow creeks.

At approximately 7.15am the lifeboat crew in the D Class lifeboat found an upturned canoe at the entrance of Mengham Rythe creek. The Atlantic 85 crew later found the paddle in the harbour.

The Coastguard helicopter had joined the search and was circling around the area when the Coastguard received a 999 call from a yacht on a mooring in the creek, but aground in the mud, reporting that a body could be seen in the mud nearby.

The lifeboat crew located the position of the yacht and found the body of a young man in the mud and brought him ashore where he was pronounced dead on scene by an RNLI paramedic.

Nigel Roper, Hayling Island Lifeboat Operations Manager, said: “This was a tragic accident that may have been avoided if the young man had been wearing a lifejacket or a buoyancy aid and had told someone that he was going out in the canoe. Our sympathies are with his family and friends.”