TEAMS of police were last night still searching the swollen waters of the river Ouse for missing sailor Nicholas Lightowler.

Frogmen were scouring the water and uniformed officers with dogs patrolling the banks in an effort to find the missing 57-year-old.

But with more than 72 hours passing since he was last seen, hopes that he could be found alive were fading fast.

A dialysis patient, he has already missed one treatment.

Mr Lightowler, from Crossgates, Leeds, was last seen boarding a white Fairline 33 motor cruiser at Naburn marina, just to the south of York, on Friday night.

The vessel was later found drifting, with no one aboard, on the river just north of York's outer ring road. The engine was still running.

Yesterday, it emerged that Mr Lightowler had been taking the £180,00 cruiser on a "test drive" when he apparently got into difficulties.

He had visited the marina as a prospective buyer for the vessel and was trying it out on the flooded river.

He travelled north through York where Clementhorpe resident Tony Fisher saw the vessel at Skeldergate Bridge.

"He came up to the bridge and was looking and trying to size it up," Mr Fisher said yesterday.

"Then he saw he couldn't get under with all the aerials he had on the back of the boat, so he pulled back and brought some of them down.

"He slowly tried to go through the middle of the bridge but, because of the swell that was underneath the bridge, he had a bit of trouble and the back of the boat rose up and hit the underneath of the bridge."

The boat lost an aerial and part of its radar equipment in the impact.

Other parts of the boat were found at the Skelton railway bridge and it is feared Mr Lightowler could have been injured there and knocked overboard.

* Last night it emerged that Mr Lightowler recently donated £17,000 to eight-year-old Eve Maguire who suffers from a rare genetic syndrome after learning of her plight.