DETECTIVES have launched a murder inquiry after a man's body was found floating in the water in Mount's Bay this week.
A watchkeeper at the National Coastwatch Institute in Penzance raised the alarm after he saw a man fall from a 10ft rowing boat near St Michael's Mount.
Penlee lifeboat crews arrived at the scene to find one person in the boat, which was half a mile west of the Mount. They searched the area and found a man's body in the water half a mile upwind of the small craft.
The drama unfolded just before 10am on Tuesday when two people were seen apparently arguing with each other in the small vessel.
Falmouth Coastguards sent the RNLI's inshore lifeboat, the Paul Alexander, from Penlee to investigate.
The crew of Rescue 193, a helicopter from RNAS Culdrose, winched the man from the deck of the Paul Alexander. He was airlifted to the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro where he was pronounced dead by medical staff at 11.30am. The RNLI's all-weather lifeboat, the Ivan Ellen, was also sent to the scene.
Detectives called to Newlyn harbour handcuffed a man aboard the boat and brought him ashore at Newlyn.
Investigation
A man, who is believed to be Eastern European, was being questioned at Camborne police station as The Cornishman went to press.
A full post-mortem investigation was carried out to determine the cause of death on Tuesday afternoon, but the dead man has not yet been identified and police were unable to give any details of where he was from.
Detective Inspector Costa Nassaris, of Devon and Cornwall Police, confirmed that a man was in police custody on suspicion of murder.
He said on Tuesday: "We were called to an incident this morning in Newlyn where a body was recovered from the water. We can confirm that this man has died and we're conducting a post-mortem to establish the cause of death. We currently have a man in custody at Camborne, being held on suspicion of murder.
"This is the early stages of a murder investigation and our job now is to piece together events leading to this incident."
Penzance harbour master Neil Clark said the two men had arrived at the harbour in a vehicle early Tuesday morning with the boat on a trailer. They cast off at about 8am.
Missing
A spokesperson for the RNLI said the inshore lifeboat was launched at 9.53am "to reports of two people in difficulties in an open boat".
"They located a small rowing boat with one person onboard, but then realised there was a person missing.
"The crew immediately began a search and found a casualty in the water half a mile upwind of the small boat.
"The person in the water was recovered to the inshore lifeboat and then airlifted by a search and rescue helicopter crew from RNAS Culdrose.
"At this stage the coastguards also requested the launch of the Penlee RNLI all-weather lifeboat Ivan Ellen.
"The person in the small boat was then recovered by police who were transferred on the inshore lifeboat."
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