A dead man washed up on a Songhkla beach wearing a shirt with "Royal Thai Navy" printed on it was a drowned fisherman, not a missing member of HTMS Sukhothai's crew.

The body was found on the shore early on Monday.

The body had been taken to hospital where it was examined and later identified by relatives as Saroj Mindo, 61, from Songkhla.

Relatives said Saroj worked on a fishing boat which sank in a storm about 30 nautical miles off Songkhla on Dec 18, the same day HTMS Sukhothai sank in a storm off Prachuap Khiri Khan province.

On Dec 21, a navy patrol boat found four crewmen from the fishing boat floating in the sea tied together by rope. One of them was alive, a Cambodian national. The others were already dead. One member of the crew was still missing. He has now been found dead.

Of the 105 crew on board the Sukhothai, 76 were rescued alive and 18 others have been found dead. Eleven were still missing. The search was continuing.