The yacht hit stormy weather 60 miles off the Spanish coast

A spokeswoman for Falmouth Coastguard said Spanish coastguards had given up the hunt for the man, from Beckenham, at 0900 BST on Tuesday, on the fourth day after he was swept from his boat.

She said: "They had searched everywhere they possibly could - you get to a point where there's nowhere else a person could be."

The family of the missing man - who was the yacht's skipper - had been told the search was over, a spokesman said.

Winched to safety

Two other crew members, also from the UK, were rescued after they managed to take to a life raft.

The yacht, Cuchulainn of Orwell, activated its satellite distress beacon after hitting stormy weather 60 nautical miles north west of Cape Finisterre, in north west Spain.

Falmouth Coastguard were alerted in the early hours of Saturday after they picked up the signal from the beacon.

When they made contact with Spanish rescue authorities in Madrid, they found a rescue operation was already underway.

'Severe gale force'

Two crew members were winched to safety from their life raft by a Spanish coastguard team.

But the third man was still missing after failing to climb into the raft.

A Spanish fixed-wing aircraft scoured the area from Saturday to Monday, backed up by two merchant vessels.

A spokeswoman for Falmouth Coastguard said: "The weather conditions were particularly horrendous.

"They had severe gale force nine, rough seas - it wasn't pleasant at all."

The spokeswoman confirmed that the two rescued crew members were safely back in the UK on Sunday.

"The yacht has been recovered and is being towed back into La Coruna," she said.