LONDON, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- A man in his 30s was rescued after drifting out into the North Sea off Britain's east coast in a small plastic dinghy.
Video of his rescue was released Tuesday by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution RNLI), showing how he was plucked to safety more than 1.6 km from the shoreline.
The man was dressed in just shorts and a hoodie, and his plastic dinghy was so small he had to dangle his legs over the side.
Dave Cocks, RNLI Lifeboat Operations Manager at Redcar said: "If the alarm hadn't been raised there was every likelihood he'd have drifted out of sight of land and we could well have been bringing a dead body back."
The alarm was raised just before 7.30 p.m. local time Monday after the man was seen drifting towards the Teesside Wind Farm in the North Sea off the coast of the North Yorkshire seaside resort of Redcar.
The Redcar inshore lifeboat was launched and found the man, who was attempting to paddle against the wind and tidal currents but drifting further out to sea.
He was taken on board the lifeboat and returned to the beach where a coastguard team was waiting to give him sea safety advice.
Cocks added, Lifeboat Operations Manager at Redcar RNLI said: "This is a good example of the types of incident we repeatedly warn people about.
It was a reasonably pleasant evening, but the wind and tide was a recipe for this to happen.
