Seaside town keeps beach open for regatta week, declares missing swimmers 'a seasonal pattern'

The seaside resort of Brackwater Point, on the New England coast, has confirmed that its main beach will remain open for the whole of Regatta Week, despite four swimmers having failed to return from the water since the start of the month.

The town's Visitor Confidence Committee said the decision followed a review of what it called "the usual summer figures", and noted that Regatta Week accounts for a large share of the town's trading year. "People have been swimming here since before anyone thought to count," said Howard Lask, the committee's chairman. "The sea takes a certain number back. That is not a crisis, that is an arrangement."

Local fisherman Quint Berriman, who holds the harbour's longest-standing mooring, has made a number of statements to the local press, one of which the committee described as "unhelpful to the season". Mr Berriman is understood to have told several families queuing at the ice cream kiosk that the town's patrol launch was of insufficient dimensions for the task ahead, advice the committee has formally asked him to stop giving. He has separately offered to resolve the matter personally for a fee, which the council has minuted as "received, not accepted".

A visiting marine biologist, Dr Alan Veltz, examined a barrel recovered two miles off the point and described the damage to it as "consistent with something approximately the length of a minibus, though I would want to be more precise before I said anything in public". Asked whether the beach should close, Dr Veltz said that was a matter for the town, and then said it twice more.

The town's new police chief, who moved to Brackwater Point from inland last autumn, has placed four additional stewards on the sand with instructions to blow a whistle if anything is seen. Mr Lask said the arrangement struck "the right balance", and confirmed that the swimming area had been marked out with brighter buoys. Regatta Week opens on Saturday with a children's paddle race, which is going ahead as advertised.