The coastguard, lifeboats, and a coastguard helicopter spent two hours combing the Carrick Roads for a missing person on Thursday night following reports of somebody spotted in the water off Greenbank Quay.

A spokesperson for the coastguard said a "keen eyed hotel guest" had called police at around 7.30pm to say he thought he had seen a person in trouble and gave a very good description of the area to work from.

The spokesperson said: "Given the wind and tidal conditions, that area was expanded to allow for this.

"On scene we quickly deployed two search teams to cover the immediate area from Greenbank back to Penryn and from Greenbank to Prince of Wales Pier, the lifeboats were both tasked to search the harbour between Falmouth and Flushing."

A team from Porthoustock coastguard rescue team joined the Falmouth team's search, working between Penryn and Trefusis Point.

After around two hours of searching, the inshore lifeboat made contact with a person on board a vessel in the harbour who confirmed that that they were the person that had been seen and were safe and well with no medical attention required.

The coastguard spokesperson added: "A false alarm with good intent, absolutely the right call by the first informant, he had initially seen a person in trouble and with the failing light, was unable to spot them and make sure they'd made it to safety.

"As ever, if you see someone in trouble at the coast, please call 999 and ask for coastguard. Appropriate resources can be dispatched without delay."

The coastguard rescue team also asked that people be more careful with their parking, as volunteers were delayed in attending the scene by poor parking, having to reverse their truck back and forth to make progress through a gap that would have been too small to allow an ambulance or fire engine through.