A Manaccan fisherman had spoken previously about taking his own life before he was found drowned off the coast at Rosemullion Head in March, an inquest has heard.

Nigel Hill, who was 56 when he died, was found by a lifeboat crew wrapped in his own weighted nets which were over the side of his boat Magica at the mouth of the Helford River on March 28.

He had gone out fishing at around 6.30am, and the last anybody had heard of him was a message left on the telephone of his friend Desmond Broad, saying he had paid out his lines and was going to moor for a couple of hours.

Detective Sergeant Alan Jordan, the officer who investigated Mr Hill's death, said it was unlikely it was an accident due to the way weights and a rope had been attached to him, and added that police had ruled out the possibility of anyone else being involved.

He said: "It wasn't something that could have accidentally happened, it was a deliberate act."

DS Jordan said Mr Hill had previously suggested to people that he would want to "take his life at sea, and would ensure that he was found."

He said: "He had lost a brother at sea previously, who had never been located."

And he added that he "tended to worry" about things, such as a vehicle he had recently bought, or an old boat that he had loved and sold, "and the suggestion was that he had regretted it."

The assistant coroner, Barrie van den Berg, said it the things he worried about were "nothing terrible," to which DS Jordan replied: "Nothing terrible from a third person point of view, but it did worry him."

Mr Hill's friend, Desmond Broad, said he was a man who "kept himself to himself," who worried about things "but I wouldn't say badly," adding "he was just Nigel, he was that way."

Asked whether he had expressed ideas of "doing something" to himself, he said: "He did, but he did to everybody. I said 'you should go to your doctor', and he said 'I'm alright, I'm just being silly, like I am.'"

Mr van den Berg accepted a pathologists report that Mr Hill had died from drowning, and recorded a verdict of suicide, saying the evidence showed he was "sure about what he did."

He said: "Nigel seemed a [true] Cornish man and people thought very highly of him," and offered his condolences to family members.

Speaking after the inquest, his family said: "He will be missed."