Hampshire-Bound Migrant Dinghy Spends 30 Hours at Sea as RNLI Crews Race to Rescue Passengers

A migrant dinghy carrying 59 people spent more than 33 hours at sea before it was met by rescue boats off the Hampshire coast on Tuesday, 22 September, according to UK and French maritime authorities.

The vessel is believed to have left Vierville-sur-Mer, west of Bayeux, on Monday morning, a rare far-west departure point for Channel crossings. French search and rescue teams tracked the boat overnight before it entered British waters and headed towards Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

RNLI and Coastguard Respond To Channel Crossing

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency said a report of a 'small boat in the Channel, south of the UK central south coast' prompted a response, with lifeboats and a Coastguard aircraft dispatched 'to collect the people and safely transfer them to UK Border Force'.

Ship-tracking data reviewed by Sky News showed the French tug Abeille Liberté turning northeast off Dives-sur-Mer at around 6.30pm on Monday, joining several French rescue vessels already shadowing the boat.

French crews described it as a 'precarious vessel with 59 people on board'. Two RNLI all-weather lifeboats left Eastbourne and Hastings around midday on Tuesday, while livestream footage showed crews transferring passengers to the Border Force cutter HMC Vigilant at around 5pm.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency said those on board would be handed to the Border Security Command for processing, which it said 'works around the clock to protect our border'. In Gosport, police closed the access road to Haslar Marina as roughly 20 officers and around 30 onlookers gathered at the waterfront.

Local Leaders Clash With Ministers Over Repeated Landings

The crossing has reignited tension following a landing at Portsmouth on 6 September, which sparked protests and disruption. Officials had described that incident as a one-off.

Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner Donna Jones said the latest crossing showed those assurances had not held.

'Hampshire is not prepared or set up to process people travelling into Britain this way, and the burden on the police to deal with the arrival and potential protest activity is unsustainable,' she said, calling for Border Force to keep boats offshore and transfer passengers directly to Dover.

She added that Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary 'cannot repeatedly divert its resources to manage landings the county was never designed to receive'.

Jones also criticised the Government over what she described as a lack of consultation and the policing costs associated with such arrivals, saying: 'This is no way to run an operation like this.'

Gosport Borough Council called the town 'unsuitable for migrant arrivals' because of Haslar Marina's position at the end of a single-access peninsula. Council leader Cllr Zoe Huggins said the location 'creates an easy target for protesters to blockade coaches... and bring avoidable disruption to Gosport's residents, businesses and communities.'

Questions Raised Over Border Security

Separately, Defence minister Luke Pollard told LBC Radio that 'our borders are secure', after a dinghy landed at Folkestone on Monday without interception. Five people were detained, and the Home Office has opened an investigation into how the crossing went undetected.

Home Office figures show 17,480 people have crossed the Channel in small boats so far this year, which ministers say is down 46 per cent on the same point in 2025. The figures are provisional and subject to change.