Coastguard, the police and the Douglas lifeboat were all called to an incident after a person was reported to have entered the sea on Thursday evening.

A press release by the RNLI said: ’Douglas RNLI lifeboat crew volunteers were paged at 10.39pm following the report of a person entering the sea off Douglas beach.

’On a calm night with a flat sea the RNLI all-weather lifeboat Marine Engineer was launched under the command of volunteer coxswain Edd Christian to assist the coastguards and police who were already on the scene.’

’While the coastguards searched along the beach the lifeboat crew conducted a shoreline search from the sea north as far as Derby Castle and back utilising both the lifeboat’s search lights and parachute flares.

’At this point the lifeboat’s daughter boat, an inflatable dinghy, was launched and volunteer crewmen James Bettridge and Michael Kaighen made for the Tower of Refuge where they landed and were able to confirm after a search that there was no one there.

’Meanwhile the lifeboat crew made a further sweep of the Douglas shoreline before returning to recover the daughter boat and its crew.

’After one further sweep of the Bay at the request of Belfast Coastguard, with no one found the lifeboat was stood down to return to station where it was re-housed and made ready again for service by 12.30am.’