Crew faced difficult sea conditions in the dark to search a 30 mile area

Lyme Regis lifeboat joined the big search for a missing Weymouth fishing boat last night (Thursday).

The four man crew, with Martin Croad at the helm, scoured a wide area from West Bay to Portland in the search for the missing vessel, The Purbeck Isle, with three men on board.

The lifeboat was launched at 11.24pm and returned to station at 3.30am today, having covered an area of some 30 miles. Nothing was found.

Martin Croad said: “Search conditions were difficult in total darkness and with a metre of swell.”

But he added that Lyme’s newly-arrived lifeboat Spirit of Loch Fyne had ‘performed brilliantly’ .

Other crew members were Tim Edwards, Ritchie Durrant and John Gage.