A 25ft motor boat was found capsized in the Thames beneath Kingston Bridge this morning.

The Metropolitan Police's marine unit was called shortly before 11am after the fibre glass vessel was found drifting towards London bottom-up.

Tweeting from its official account @MPSonthewater police said: "Marine 31 are currently running to the Kingston area where there are reports of a holed vessel drifting towards London".

RNLI Teddington was called to assist and found the boat close to Teddington, securing it to the nearby lock cut.

Andy Butterfield, helmsman of Teddington lifeboat crew, said: ‘We understand the police were dealing with an incident on the river and we were talking to London Coastguard to see if they needed our assistance with that.

"During that conversation, the police reported seeing a large upturned boat drifting down the river by Kingston Bridge.

"Because no-one could say for definite if there had been anyone on board we were asked to launch to search just in case.

"We arrived at Kingston Bridge but could see no sign of it.

"We spoke to an angler on the banks of the river and he said he’d seen it floating past at quite a rate. We then managed to track the boat down at Teddington Lock.

"We couldn’t really make out what kind of vessel it was to be honest. You could only see the hull because it was upside down.

"All we could ascertain was that it was made of fibreglass, and it had a hole in the hull several feet in diameter."

A spokesman for Teddington RNLI said the Environment Agency had been called and was trying to locate the owner.

 

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