Man clinging to toy dinghy rescued in rough seas

A man clinging to a toy dinghy has been rescued from strong seas and pulled to safety off the coast of England.

The man, who lifeboat rescuers believe was in his 30s, was found drifting towards a wind farm in the water with his legs dangling over the edge of the blow-up toy.

He was only wearing a hooded jumper and shorts when he was scooped from the sea in the cold conditions in the North Sea on Monday.

Rescuers gave the man a sea safety lesson after his rescue, saying there was a chance he could have died had the alarm not been raised.

"This is a good example of the types of incident we repeatedly warn people about,” Dave Cocks, lifeboat operations manager at Redcar RNLI, said.

"It was a reasonably pleasant evening but the wind and tide were a recipe for this to happen.

"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."