The alarming prospect of a ghost ship full of diseased rats about to beach on the British coastline was making the headlines last week.
Apparently experts feared storms had driven an abandoned cruise liner towards us after a Canadian tow ship lost it a year ago.
But the only unusual vessel reported to be washed up so far was a United States Navy target boat.
The boat was discovered covered in barnacles on Perranporth beach in Cornwall at the weekend.
The small orange boat has probably travelled more than the 4,200 miles between Florida and the north coast of Cornwall.
But as yet no sign of the abandoned Lyubov Orlova which has been missing since it was cut adrift while being towed from Canada.
Salvage experts searching for the 40-year-old liner for scrap metal said there were likely to be thousands of disease-ridden rats on boat with no source of food except each other.
However, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency rubbished the claims saying it was convinced the ship had sunk as any vessel entering busy European waters would have been quickly spotted.
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